Fort Riley hosts K-State, KU aviators, fosters community partnerships

Pamela Redford
1st Inf. Div. Post

Maintaining one of its many community partnerships with the Central Flint Hills Region, Fort Riley granted area aviators access to restricted airspace over the installation during the second week in May so faculty, staff and students from Kansas State University Salina and the University of Kansas could visit and conduct research on unmanned aerial vehicles.

One day apart from each other, K-State and KU both flew unmanned drones at the mock airfield on Douthit Range Complex. UAVs, or drones, are aircraft flown without a human pilot. Unmanned Aircraft Systems are currently banned from integration into the National Airspace System because of United States Federal Aviation Administration safety regulations – making the number of places UAVs are allowed to fly in Kansas very few and far between.

May 8 was the first time that K-State has flown its UAVs at Fort Riley, according to Kelly D. Gulker, Air Traffic and Airspace Officer, Marshall Army Airfield, Directorate of Plans, Training, Mobilization and Security. Civil traffic is restricted at the mock airfield, Gulker said, making it a perfect place for UAS flight testing and research.

“(Fort Riley) is great. This is the best facility we’ve ever flown at. Having the paved runway here, having the open airspace … Kelly and the guys here are very helpful with giving us everything that we need to come here and fly,” said Kirk Demuth, chief UAS pilot and research assistant, Aviation Program, K-State Salina.

Demuth, two staff members and one student from the Unmanned Aircraft Systems program at K-State Salina spent several hours at the mock airfield testing their equipment. They brought their own support equipment in a trailer outfitted with the Piccolo autopilot system.

Although UAVs are primarily known for their role in military and security missions, their use in civilian applications is growing, Demuth said. Emergency responders use the systems for search and rescue and disaster assessment. UAVs also are used in nonmilitary security patrols, firefighting, weather monitoring and surveillance of oil and gas pipelines, as well as for land and crops. 

K-State’s aircraft, the Penguin B UAV, is made by UAV Factory of Latvia and weighs about 42 pounds with fuel and payload, Demuth said. Similar to a weed-whacker, the Penguin B is powered by a two-stroke gas engine with one cylinder. It can fly up to 20 hours on one gallon of gasoline. 

The Penguin B also can record and transmit live video in flight, Demuth said. The major advantage to UAVs, in his opinion, is their ability to cover long distances without having to land, he said.

Their endurance means that flight times can be extended by simply swapping out pilots on the ground, while the mission continues in the air, which means longer fights and less fatigued pilots, he said.

Currently, the Aviation Program at K-State has a contract with the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. Its mission is to conduct flight tests and gather data to see how UAVs interact with manned and unmanned aircraft, in the interest of integration into the NAS, which could benefit all the services in the future.

Ultimately, it’s a Certificate of Authorization for the Penguin B that Demuth and his crew are after. The aircraft is a new addition to their fleet of certified UAVs. Demuth said he expects the Penguin B will receive certification within a few months. In the meantime, weekly research will continue.

The advantage of using Fort Riley’s mock airfield, he said, is less chance of damage to the Penguin B. The benefit of a paved runway is not a luxury the Salina students enjoy on their own restricted airspace – they just have grass.

Demuth also said having Gulker handle airfield communications with people already working on the airfield and within range communications allowed his crew to focus on their research and documentation without interruption.

Continuing its 10-year relationship with Fort Riley, KU’s Aerospace Engineering Department visited the mock airfield May 9 with their flight systems team to conduct research. It was their third trip made specifically to access the installation’s restricted airspace.

During the first part of the day, team members looked at sensor integration, looking at different sensors on board their UAV to evaluate the quality of data they were receiving.

Students also had time to experiment with aerospace instrumentation for a graduate class project later in the afternoon. 

KU’s aircraft, the YAK54, is a scaled-down model of a Russian acrobatic airplane, according to Chris Hedden, graduate research assistant. Hedden is a doctoral student currently researching trajectory optimization.

The recently acquired YAK 54 comes pre-assembled and has very stable aerodynamics, he said. Like the Penguin B, it uses gasoline and has a two-stroke engine. Hedden compared its 16-horsepower engine to a riding lawnmower’s engine.

The crew of nine was able to do a preliminary analysis of its new aircraft, but it will take three or four flight tests to get it done, he said.

“The facilities at Fort Riley are just unmatched,” Hedden said. “There are only two facilities in Kansas that we can do (UAV) flights at – Fort Riley and Smoky Hills.”

Hedden said plans for a return trip are already in the works because KU does not have its own restricted airspace, and the high winds in western Kansas often rule out using the airspace in the Smoky Hills.

“Due to the fact that restricted airspace is a valuable commodity – there is not a lot of it in the continental U.S. – Fort Riley’s willingness to share our restricted airspace benefits partners like K-State and KU for their programs. It’s all part of supporting our regional partners and supporting their efforts, which may benefit through Department of Defense efforts in the future,” said Tim Livsey, director, DPTMS.

The installation tries to offer the airspace to the aviation programs when Soldiers are not using the area in the interest of being good regional partners, Gulker said.

“We also try to make it more efficient by hosting (multiple groups) within the same couple of days,” he said. “Scheduling it that way reduces the amount of airspace that they need and increases the efficiency of the operation because it requires less time, people and money.”

Livsey said the restricted airspace will continue to be a valuable training commodity and capability in the future.

“As the Army seeks systems that can operate in the third dimension – airspace – proliferation of additional unmanned aerial systems, munitions, etc., will make restricted airspace critical for training the future force,” he said.

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