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Rift over UAV control reaches new altitude

A spat between the Air Force and Army about remote-controlled aircraft is taking off.

One-stars from each service have traded harsh words over who will control unmanned aerial vehicles at medium and high altitudes and how to manage their separate aircraft programs.

At an Army aviation roundtable March 23 at the Pentagon, Army Brig. Gen. Stephen D. Mundt, chief of Army air operations, blasted the Air Force for proposing that it be responsible for the development and operations of unmanned aerial vehicles that operate above 3,500 feet.

“Somebody tell me when a line in the sky became a service core competency,” Mundt said. “My helicopters fly above 3,500 feet. That does not mean they belong to the Air Force. The Air Force airplanes fly below 3,500 feet and it doesn’t mean they belong to the ground force component commanders.”

Part of the disagreement centers on the different ways the Army and Air Force control UAVs. The Army wants its UAV pilots sitting close to battlefield commanders, whereas the Air Force stations pilots at air bases in the theater or back in the U.S.

“Don’t get into the tactical commander’s fight and don’t get into the way we do business,” Mundt warned the Air Force.

The vice commander of the Air Intelligence Agency, Brig. Gen. Jan-Marc Jouas, issued a strongly worded statement Wednesday taking Mundt to task for criticizing the Air Force request.

“Army Brig. Gen. Stephen Mundt ... recently disparaged the Air Force chief of staff’s efforts to optimize our nation’s intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities,” Jouas wrote.

Jouas called Mundt’s comments “caustic” and “reminiscent” of the years when jointness was an afterthought.

Jouas went on to defend Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley, who made the proposal March 6. The chief’s goal is not “to tell the Army or any other service how to do their business,” Jouas stated.