Defense secretary talks with Nellis airmen — VIDEO
The U.S. military is augmenting its cadre of drone pilots with private contractors to alleviate strain on crews at Creech Air Force Base and elsewhere while adding the Army’s Gray Eagle drone to hunt down terrorists, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Wednesday.
“We are changing the mix of the fleet and that’s in part an effort to address the workload issue, which is so important, and also to improve the capacity overall,” he said during a visit to Nellis Air Force Base where he was briefed by Nellis leaders on the ongoing Red Flag air combat exercise and talked to about 200 of the 10,000 airmen stationed at Nellis.
“In addition to the Air Force MQ-1s (Predators) and MQ-9s (Reapers) we will be flying the Army analog, which is the Gray Eagle and … having government-owned and contractor-operated MQ-1s and MQ-9s doing the ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) role, and not flying armed,” he said.
His comments came in response to a question by the Las Vegas Review-Journal about remotely piloted aircraft staffing issues in light of contractors who began flying them this month. The Creech base at Indian Springs, 45 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is a hub for controlling Predator and Reaper spy missions overseas and conducting drone strikes on terrorist strongholds in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
Most hours for combat air patrols are devoted to finding, identifying and tracking terrorists such as those aligned with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. While contractor pilots from drone manufacturer General Atomics can do that work, Carter said they won’t be firing laser-guided missile or bombs. The relatively small percentage of missions that involve air strikes from drones will be left to military operators.
“It can’t be said enough how grateful we all need to be to the people who have been flying these RPAs all these years now. We’ve worked them exceedingly hard, and that is why we need to manage the workforce in a careful way,” he said.
Carter said because the military is “routinely successful in removing terrorists from the battlefield shows that you cannot escape the long arm of the United States.”
He said the military is involved in a “multi-pronged campaign” that includes “stemming the ebb and flow of foreign fighters” and enhancing the U.S. cyber defense network.
Carter’s visit to Nellis — his first since his appointment by President Barack Obama to replace Chuck Hagel was confirmed by the Senate in February — is part of a four-day swing through military installations in the West and Midwest.
Carter, 60, spoke to about 200 airmen, telling them, “Our entire country is dependent on what you do and grateful for what you do.”
The audience included several airmen from Israel, Jordan and Singapore who are participating in the Red Flag exercise that involves realistic sorties over the 2.9 million-acre Nevada Test and Training Range north of the Las Vegas Valley.
“What you do is the noblest thing anybody can do,” he said.
Contact Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308. Find him on Twitter: @KeithRogers2.