Soldiers with the 10th Mountain Division, which is currently deployed in Romania, recently became the first Army unit to field the service’s newest reconnaissance drones.
The 317th Brigade Engineer Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, out of Fort Drum, New York, employed the Skydio and GhostX systems during training operations at Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base, Romania, according to an Army release.
The new drones fit different mission profiles at the tactical level.
The Skydio X10D drone is a short-range recon aircraft that can fly up to 5 kilometers and stay aloft for approximately 30 minutes, according to the release. Typically, the Skydio is deployed by infantry and scout platoons on dismounted patrols, providing soldiers with a better snapshot of their immediate area during mission planning.
The GhostX, made by Anduril, goes a bit farther. It can fly up to 15 kilometers and stay in the air for an hour. This platform is geared toward a company commander’s needs in a larger area of operation.
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Soldiers flying the new drones, meanwhile, nabbed new skills during the operation.
“You have to be a qualified aircraft operator before you’re able to put the aircraft in the air, so we run an initial qualification program for multiple units in our brigade,” said Staff Sgt. Kevin Sweeny, counter-drone NCO in charge for Delta Company, 317th BEB.
During the late November training, the unit qualified 132 Skydio operators, according to the release.
“They can take the [Sydio] aircraft out of its case, assemble it, mission plan and get it in the air in less than 10 minutes,” Sweeny said.
Every company in the 3rd BCT is slated to receive a Skydio system, with next steps expected to include using the systems in training at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Hoehenfels, Germany.
“The end state of this whole exercise is to test the personnel, the structure of the platoon and the communication between the squads and how we work together as a whole,” said 1st Lt. Alexis Gavrillis, an intelligence officer in the battalion.
When it comes to implementing the GhostX drone, the system is slated to go to each of the battalions in the BCT.
While the Army began including counter-drone training as part of basic training this year, the field training this particular outfit recently concluded is likely to be replicated throughout many more Army units.
The drone certification process is MOS-agnostic. Soldiers with the training can apply it in their units when needed, regardless of their primary job.
Defense News reported in September that the Army awarded Anduril Industries and Performance Drone Works a $14.42 million contract for its small drone program.
The Army recently released a “sources sought” notice for industry to solicit pitches on an interim capability for tactical drones at the brigade level, according to a service release.
Todd South has written about crime, courts, government and the military for multiple publications since 2004 and was named a 2014 Pulitzer finalist for a co-written project on witness intimidation. Todd is a Marine veteran of the Iraq War.
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