• 919th Special Operations Wing Public Affairs

SANDERSON, Texas (AFNS) —  

Just south of Fort Stockton is one of the largest private armed forces training centers in the country, the Nine Mile Training Center — an expansive terrain offering privacy from prying eyes and the perfect opportunity to unleash the MQ-9 Reaper remotely piloted aircraft.

At this remote dirt strip in West Texas, members from the 2nd Special Operations Squadron, 727th Special Operations Aircraft Maintenance Squadron and 311th Special Operations Intelligence Squadron teamed up with Airmen from the 26th Special Tactics Squadron out of Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico, June 15, to carve their next milestone into Air Force Special Operations Command history.

Working together, the air commandos conducted the first MQ-9 landing on a dirt landing zone.

“This is a significant achievement for Air Force Reserve Command, AFSOC, the MQ-9 community and the joint force as a whole,” said Lt. Col. Brian Flanigan, 2nd SOS director of operations. “This team of aircrew, maintainers and special tactics Airmen have proven the Reaper can operate anywhere in the world and is no longer beholden to the ‘leash’ of perfectly paved runways or line-of-sight antennas traditionally used to takeoff and land the aircraft.”

Historically, the MQ-9 has taken off and landed via line-of-sight of antennas, with aircrew members manually flying the aircraft. Now, the MQ-9 can literally takeoff and land from anywhere in the world.

Flanigan was quick to point out how this new concept meets the AFRC’s priorities of ‘Ready Now’ and ‘transforming for the future.’

“This capability will be critical in ‘tomorrow’s fight’ and nests perfectly with the Air Force’s Agile Combat Employment concept that focuses on smaller footprints, distributed operations and increased survivability while generating combat power,” Flanigan said. “We are demonstrating what is possible when you leverage citizen air commandos and our diverse backgrounds to take an existing capability like [satellite launch and recovery] and apply it to the future fight.”

The 12th Aircraft Maintenance Unit from the 727th Special Operations Aircraft Maintenance Squadron supported the effort with a very small footprint to the austere location using ACE techniques, tactics and procedures developed by the 12th AMU.

“This initiative was significant in terms of refining maintenance ACE capabilities because it provided insight into how the aircraft handles landing in an austere environment,” said Maj. Doniell Mojazza, 727th SOAMXS director of operations. “This scenario both challenged and empowered 12th AMU maintainers to assess risk utilizing their expertise and innovation to ensure aircraft air worthiness and mission success.”

The team is not only using the MQ-9 SLR capability to access short, narrow and unprepared places, but also using it in creative ways to offer ‘off the menu’ options not traditionally provided by RPAs. This was demonstrated by their use of a travel pod attached to the aircraft to execute a critical resupply of the 26th STS on the dirt landing zone.