US Army UAV & Iraqi Army Road March

A week ago we got a tour of an Army UAV (Shadow) unit. They launch and recover remote controlled aircraft 24/7 given good visibility. Dust storms limit availability. The launcher (pictured above) accelerates the UAV to 70 mph in 0.5 seconds. They take off about 300 yards from our pods and are quite loud – they sound like a lawn mower. The unit flying them has logged over 200,000 flight hours. Cost is about $750k per copy. In the pictures you can make out a tail hook which catches one of 2 resting cables and if they miss -- a net further down the runway catches the aircraft.

We visited the Iraqi Army training facility here at Tajji. Talked to Col Muhammed - an Iraqi Colonel who has commanded there for about 3 years -- very respected. The lower level enlisted soldiers are called janubs in Arabic. They were headed out on a road march & currently have about 1400 soldiers there in training.