NAS Fallon UAV program ships out

The unmanned aerial vehicle research center established on a temporary basis at NAS Fallon nearly four years ago will close down next week and merge into a new Air Force UAV "Center for Excellence" in Southern Nevada.

The Joint Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Joint Test and Evaluation Center, which came on line at NAS Fallon in the late summer of 2001, will be closing its doors on April 29 and transferred to the new center north of Las Vegas, said Capt. Dave "Roy" Rogers, the Fallon center's director and a former commanding officer of NAS Fallon.

"We've had a successful four years with our UAV program here in Fallon, and it's now time to close up shop and merge our unit with the new Center for Excellence that's being established at the Indian Springs Air Force Base," said Rogers, who is retiring from the Navy in September.

Founded by the Dept. of Defense to help the military identify ways to improve and coordinate the use of UAVs by all four of the military services, the Fallon UAV center succeeded in its prime mission of developing a "playbook" and tactical manuals that will be utilized at the Indian Springs facility, Rogers said.

Although the UAV concept for military use was initially developed in the late 1960s, UAV research today still is in its "infancy," said Rogers.

"When compared with the development of the airplane, the UAV today is where the airplane was in 1920, just 17 years after the Wright Brothers made the world's first flight," Rogers added.

Rogers said the just-developing Indian Springs center will be staffed by uniformed members of all the services.

The biggest challenge at this juncture facing the future of the UAV or unmanned drone aircraft relates to joint services coordination as well as joint weapons and aerial control standards, Rogers said.

UAVs, which were initially used for aerial military reconnaissance, are now being fitted with weapons, and in coming years will be augmented into Navy carrier squadrons, Air Force wings and Army and Marine Corps aviation units, he said. The Indian Springs runways have been upgraded, new housing and hangars are being constructed and 2,500 military and civilian personnel are now working at the facility in the remote Southern Nevada desert.

About 500 Air Force personnel are assigned to the Predator squadrons, which operate 80 Predators that are 127 feet in length, have a wingspan of 48.7 feet, can fly 24 hours at a time at altitudes as high as 10,000 feet and carry Hellfire missiles.

The Predators have been used extensively in the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts and they, along with UAVs from the other services. They will be tested extensively at the Indian Springs base.