Col. Courtney Cote speaks on a panel at AUVSI's Unmanned Systems Program Review 2014. Photo: AUVSI.

by Brett Davis

Col. Courtney Cote, the new project manager of the U.S. Army’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Project Office, has taken over the job just as the Army is pushing to expand its manned-unmanned teaming concept and continuing to modernize its unmanned systems.



All of that is happening as the service is maintaining a heavy operational tempo even as the long-running war in Afghanistan is winding down.



“The op tempo really is not going down,” Cote says in an interview with <i>Unmanned Systems</i>. “As the footprint of soldiers and number of soldiers reduces, the need for gaining information doesn’t go away. … UAS give you the ability to still cover the ground and maintain contact and continue to develop your situational awareness even as the deployed forces, the footprint, reduces. So in that respect, the op tempo is not really reduced much.”



“In OIF [Operational Iraqi Freedom], the unmanned systems were some of the last systems to come out of theater, and we’re seeing that repeated as we come out of Afghanistan as well,” says Rich Kretzschmar, the deputy program manager, who also participated in the interview. “History is sort of repeating itself as we come out of Afghanistan as well.”



If the op tempo isn’t down, the Army’s fielding and modernization efforts aren’t down either. Cote, who took over as project manager in July, succeeding Col. Tim Baxter, is able to run down a long list of pending milestones.



The Army’s largest unmanned aircraft, the General Atomics-built Gray Eagle, is continuing to be rolled out to the troops, going to two companies per year through 2018. It has been fielded so far through its sixth unit. The Army is planning to transition it to soldier maintenance and update it to Link 16, as well as other upgrades.



“That’s Gray Eagle’s focus in the short term. For the long term, we will transition from our base program, the production and fielding ... to sustaining that after we’ve fielded it and continuing to modify the airframe to continue to meet the needs and capabilities of the Army,” Cote says.



The Army is also continuing to test and roll out its Ground-Based Sense and Avoid system, a radar-based installation that allows Gray Eagle UAS to transition from controlled airspace, such as at airfields, to restricted airspace and back again.



“We are on track to begin fielding the Ground-Based Sense and Avoid starting next year, and what that does is it aids and facilitates the flight of Gray Eagle in the national airspace,” Cote says.



A test system is in place now at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, with fielding slated to start next year. Eventually the GBSAA is to be in place at Fort Hood, Texas, Fort Riley, Kansas, Fort Stewart, Georgia, Fort Drum, New York, and Fort Campbell, which bestrides Kentucky and Tennessee.



As of press time, Cote said by mid-December they will “be installing the first radar at Fort Hood. They’ve already poured the concrete, built the tower and they’ll be installing the first radar of the GBSAA at Fort Hood on the 15th of December.”



The Army is also talking with the U.S. Air Force about sharing the GBSAA systems. The Army has the lead on ground-based sense-and-avoid efforts, and the Air Force has the lead on developing airborne systems. The Marine Corps has also expressed interest, Cote says.



“That’s a good news story,” says Kretzschmar. “The investment the Army has made is benefitting the other services.”



Other Army UAS programs are being upgraded as well, including the venerable Shadow tactical UAS, which is getting longer wings to allow for greater endurance and a TCDL, or tactical common data link.



“We’re gearing up to start fielding upwards of about five platoons per month, and we’re going to be doing that … all the way out to FY [fiscal year] 20,” Cote says of the rewinged Shadow.



The Army’s One System Remote Video Terminal, “the most prolific UAS-related product that’s out there,” will be going to initial operational test and evaluation next summer in its new Dash 50 variant form. It’s a bidirectional video terminal that not only allows ground users to get video from the air, but also lets them control a UAS payload so they can see what they want to see in coordination with the system operators.



That capability is also one component of the Army’s manned-unmanned teaming concept, which was demonstrated in 2011 by the Manned-Unmanned Systems Integration Capability (MUSIC) demonstration. The Army has continued to develop that capability, including a recent exercise that combined manned Apache helicopters with both versions of the Shadow, the Gray Eagle and the OSRVT. It involved Army labs in California, Maryland and Huntsville, Alabama; flight lines in California and Alabama; “a huge effort between multiple PMs, multiple test activities, multiple different commands,” Cote says.



“We were able to actually connect all those different platforms in those different configurations,” he says, which included some firsts, including “the first time an Apache had controlled the flight and payload of a Shadow while it was in flight, which was a big one.”



The Army is also still pondering a new UAS system, using short-range microsystems, the types that can allow soldiers to quickly and easily see what might be over the next hill. For the moment, this capability is in a holding pattern until some budget issues become more clear.



The Army is currently operating under a continuing resolution as it prepares its fiscal 2016 budget request and ponders the fiscal 2017-2021 program objective memorandum, while also considering what to do if sequestration remains in place.



“It’s a challenge. … It was very hard to formulate where you want to go if you don’t have a defined departure point,” Cote says.



Cote comes from a manned aviation background, which he says helps him understand the types of missions where UAS can help.



“How has my career prepared me for this? From an operational perspective, I’m a rotary wing pilot, I’m a helicopter pilot, so I recognize the aviation culture. … My operational time, while I was flying, was as an AH-64 pilot, so I understand the AH-64 mission and then also have been an aero scout before I started to fly an Apache, so I understand the aero scout mission, I understand the attack mission, so weaving UAS into the heavy attack reconnaissance squadrons and the manned-unmanned teaming, I understand what the scouting mission is, and I understand what an attack mission is, so how does this get woven into that.”



The main thing he’s learned on the PM UAS job so far, he says, is “UAS have multiple stakeholders, multiple users, and there is virtually not a lot of limits to what you can do with UAS. And I think that’s what the Army is going to be recognizing here in coming years. … UAS can be a lot of things to a lot of people. That’s an exciting aspect of it.” 

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