Warfighters reach back to Langley ISR
By 1st Lt. Anna Siegel
Air Combat Command Public Affairs
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Airman 1st Class Jamie O'Connell, an imagery analyst in the 30th Intelligence
Squadron here, consults with Master Sgt. William Dougherty, an imagery mission
supervisor from the 123rd IS, to interpret data from a Predator image feed.
Sergeant Dougherty is deployed to the Distributed Ground System 1 from the
Arkansas Air National Guard. DGS 1 deploys to support intelligence missions in
the theater of operations, and is capable of providing intelligence,
surveillance and reconnaissance “reachback” from its current home at Langley
AFB, Va. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Brendan Kavanaugh) |
10/3/2003 - LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. (ACCNS) -- Each day during
Operation Iraqi Freedom, Airman 1st Class Jamie O’Connell would drive home
from Langley AFB after fighting the war in Iraq, and with traffic, it took her
about 15 minutes.
She’s an imagery analyst in the 30th Intelligence Squadron, working at
Distributed Ground System 1 here, which provides intelligence, surveillance
and reconnaissance reach back capabilities for deployed warfighting
commanders.
The 10th and 30th Intelligence Squadrons here form the DGS 1, which shares the
responsibility of monitoring intelligence data feeds from deployed locations,
interpreting them and providing feedback to the warfighter in theater with the
13th and 48th IS, or DGS-2, at Beale AFB, Calif.
Airman O’Connell and her DGS 1 team members work in trailers designed to
deploy to remote locations to process the information gathered by U-2
Dragonladies, RQ/MQ-1 Predators, Global Hawks and other intelligence
platforms. The trailers now sit in an old B-52 hangar at Langley.
DGS-1 was deployed to Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, when the Khobar Towers were
bombed in June 1996, where some of its members suffered casualties, said Col.
Larry Grundhauser, the commander of the 480th Intelligence Group. While
planning for Operation Allied Force in 1999, Air Force leadership realized
that communication technology had caught up with operational requirements.
This, added to the losses suffered by the bombing, underscored the need to
transform the way intelligence was distributed.
“If we can do our mission without putting a large number of folks in harm’s
way, let’s do it,” he said. “We can now move digits, not people.”
This saves the Air Force force protection, supply and transportation needs,
adding up to a savings estimated between $6 million and $15 million for
operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, said Col. Donald Hudson, deputy
director of ACC Intelligence.
“It would require upwards of 1,500 people for the two ground stations and 17
C-5 Galaxies per station to deploy,” said Steve Lafata, the 480th IG technical
director. This takes an enormous burden off the Combined Forces Air Component
Commander, and gives him even greater capabilities, which aren’t affected by
the deployment system’s time or space constraints.
Being nearly 7,000 miles away from the action doesn’t stop the DGS crews from
fighting the war.
“The crew receives a pre-mission brief, including their objectives and chain
of command,” Mr. Lafata said. “From that point forward, they are a part of the
Combined Air Operations Center. Their mindset, attitude and sense of urgency
changes, like the flip of a switch.”
“Mentally, all you can do is be informed and prepared for the job,” Airman
O’Connell said.
After the briefing, the crew walks from the squadron’s office to the hangar,
where, depending on the mission, they’ll spend between six and 12 hours
monitoring the Predator’s live satellite feed or receiving multiple sources of
intelligence. The airmen, most as young as 19 and 20 years old, use the CAOC’s
priority list of targets to guide their work.
“They receive the imagery, find their target and report on that target --
based on the CFACC’s guidance and requirements -- whether it’s confirm or deny
the presence of any activity or anything associated with the given target,
which could be something like an airfield, compound or convoy,” Mr. Lafata
said. “Most of the time that process takes anywhere from five minutes to 20
minutes.”
Colonel Grundhauser called it persistent ISR that gives the commanders in
theater the information faster so they can make their decisions faster.
“We achieved single-digit-minute objectives, which doesn’t mean we dropped the
bombs that fast, we just gave the commanders the ability to decide earlier,”
he said.
The communication technology is state-of-the-art and robust, said William
Carlton, the 480th IG systems chief. The information flows on pre-established
networks with high bandwidth, which is parsed out relative to the mission
requirements.
“We didn’t lose one mission in OEF or OIF due to a communications system’s
failure,” Colonel Grundhauser said. But the leadership agrees that it’s not
the computers and satellites they’re the most impressed with, it’s their
people.
“Fortunately for us, it was a total force execution,” Mr. Lafata said. “We had
about 140 Guard folks activated and employed through the entire process. We
certainly could not have successfully accomplished those tasks, or the volume
of missions, without those folks.”
Rounding out the total-force effort were active-duty troops like Airman
O’Connell. During a routine surveillance mission, she was working with an
image of some Iraqi troops following the instructions given on one of the
leaflets dropped by coalition forces.
“This was significant because we knew that the Iraqis were complying with our
instructions,” she said.
She immediately notified the analyst supervisor and mission operations
commander. The CAOC in theater knew in single-digit minutes that Iraqi forces
were surrendering, which not only saved lives, but also munitions and combat
sorties.
Her commander, Lt. Col. Anthony Lombardo, lauded her actions as an example of
the trust the Air Force places in its junior members.
“She showed the same sense of urgency for saving Iraqis on the battlefield as
she did for other time-critical targets because she was highly trained and
informed,” he said.
The importance of their responsibilities is not lost on the airmen assigned to
the DGS, even though they fight in a virtual battlefield.
“It's nice to live normally, but to know that you are helping affect the
things that are happening,” Airman O’Connell said.
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