Army plays ‘catch up’ on drone warfare with new operator course

Soldiers will have the chance to attend the Army’s first official drone course to become experts in flying, building, and repairing them in combat.

Officials at the U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence at Fort Rucker, Alabama, announced the launch of its Unmanned Advanced Lethality Course this week. The training is just one part of the U.S. military’s recent efforts to catch up on unmanned systems, which have seen wide use on battlefields across the globe for the past decade.

For the Army’s course, soldiers first attend three weeks of classroom instruction on a variety of commercial drones and complete 20 to 25 hours of simulated flying. The course uses commercially available simulators — “essentially, video games” — to build foundational flying skills, said Leslie Herlick, a spokespe