Photo By Stephen Hudson | U.S. Air Force Maj. Mitchell Maes, a mission systems operator from the 116th Fighter...... read more read more
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VOLK FIELD, Wis. – When a disaster strikes incident commanders need information to make decisions quickly. That is where the Air National Guard RC-26 aircraft plays a major role.
Lt. Col. Stephen Dowd, RC-26 program manager with the Texas Air National Guard’s 147th Air Reconnaissance Wing from Ellington Field, Houston, Texas, said the aircraft is nimble and they can get to a natural disaster fast providing incident commanders critical information to make decisions.
Flying five hours at a time, this airborne command and control asset can let incident commanders know where bridges are out and provide coordinates to where people may be in distress. Bring a Joint Terminal Attack Controller on board and the RC-26 now provides Command and Control and Airspace Management.
The RC-26 has been used in other natural disaster operations including the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, numerous wildfires and missing person cases.
“A lot of skills we develop in combat are useful in a domestic operation,” Dowd said.
After a major natural disaster, such as the one simulated during PATRIOT, an incident commander needs invaluable life-saving information and the RC-26 provides it.
The RC-26 is the only manned Full-Motion-Video platform participating in PATRIOT, said Dowd.
“We play an integral role to provide Incident Awareness and Assessment for a domestic response,” Dowd said. “Because our core continental U.S. mission is Counterdrug Operations, we possess a wealth of experience working with civilian agencies that many military platforms do not since we must board a Law Enforcement Agent to legally participate in a civilian drug case.”
During PATRIOT 15 the RC-26 streamed video to Jagwire, and in turn, to Google Siris and ATAK. These products are cutting-edge Common Operating Picture suites that allow for all entities in a mission to share and disseminate information through an interface with Google Earth. Additionally, they perfected the use of the InReach system which allowed identification and tracking on the map of all these software packages while also allowing for direct, two-way SMS messaging from the plane to anybody with a mobile phone on the ground.
Dowd said the RC-26 “is a great asset for the whole nation because of its rapid response after a disaster.”
| Date Taken: | 07.23.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 07.24.2015 15:38 |
| Story ID: | 171056 |
| Location: | WI, US |
| Web Views: | 276 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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