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Army UAV Center of Excellence to be at Rucker

By Carrie David
July 15, 2005

WASHINGTON (Army News Service, July 15, 2005) – The U.S. Army Aviation Center at Fort Rucker, Ala., has been designated as the new Army Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Center of Excellence.

A Joint UAV Center of Excellence was also announced July 8 by the Defense Department and it will be established at Creech Air Force Base, Nev.

“We realized that we needed an integrating hub for all these installations that have a UAV component,” said Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser, director of the Army Aviation Task Force located at the Pentagon. Currently, 12 Army installations have a UAV mission.

A total of 574 UAVs are now being used in the Afghanistan and Iraq theaters, Schloesser said. The vehicles are used for reconnaissance, surveillance and intelligence- gathering missions, as well as for the adjustment of artillery and mortar fire.

Types of UAVs include the hand-launched Raven, the larger Shadow, the Hunter UAV with a wingspan of 29 feet, and a single huge I-Gnat system with a wingspan of 48.7 feet.

The Army UAV center “will ensure that all Army UAV activities are cohesive, coordinated and in support of current and future war-fighting requirements,” Schloesser said.

“Because this is such a growing field, we don’t see any resources leaving any … installations,” Schloesser said. “UAVs are so important to the way we are fighting now and the way we think we will fight, we expect to see growth at these installations.”

But the designation of Rucker as the new UAV Center of Excellence will see no noticeable change in the current structure or resources there, he said.

The U.S. Army Aviation Center and Fort Rucker commander, Brig. Gen. Edward J. Sinclair, will serve as the chairman of the UAV Board of Directors.

“Each installation will provide a representative as a member of this board,” Schloesser said. “That is the ultimate in partnering, and it is meant to take advantage of the capabilities and core functions that are occurring throughout these different installations so that we reduce redundancy.”

Installations with a UAV mission and represented on the board include:

• Fort Huachuca, Ariz.

• Fort Eustis, Va.

• Fort Benning, Ga.

• Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md.

• Redstone Arsenal, Ala.

• Fort Monmouth, N.J.

• Fort Knox, Ky.

• Fort Gordon, Ga.

• Fort Sill, Okla.

• Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.

• Fort Lee, Va.

• Picatinny Arsenal, N.J.

“We needed one voice to be able to represent UAVs, not only at headquarters here, but as we become more joint, to the joint centers of excellence and the joint structure,” Schloesser said.