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Grand Forks preparing for UAVs

GRAND FORKS, N.D. — Air Force experts in civil engineering, communications and other fields are at Grand Forks Air Force Base this week to help the base prepare for the arrival of the Predator and Global Hawk.

The unmanned aerial vehicles are to be part of the base’s new mission. It is slated to lose its current fleet of KC-135 refueling tankers.

A 10-member team from Virginia’s Langley Air Force Base arrived Tuesday. Jim Ellis, the team chief, said the base has the infrastructure for its new mission, so the team will focus on coordinating the UAVs with the departure of the tankers.

Ellis said eight Predator unmanned aircraft are slated to arrive at the base in early 2009. Global Hawks should start arriving in 2010 at a rate of one or two per year.

The federal Base Realignment and Closure commission has ordered the relocation of the base’s tankers by the end of 2010. The base was realigned to be a second U.S.-based operating location for unmanned aircraft, behind California’s Beale Air Force Base.

Ellis and his crew are working separately from a tanker site selection team that visited the base in late March. That group studied the base as a possible site for the Air Force’s next generation of air refueling tankers, which are scheduled for production in 2011.

Base personnel also are brushing up on their combat skills.

Staff Sgt. Jarod Cappon, an instructor, said the training focuses on “reaction to contact” responding to attacks on U.S. military installations. The group being trained includes airmen who work as cooks and mechanics and do not normally experience combat situations but who could be called on to defend a base.

“At an air base, we’re all defenders of the base,” said Col. Carla Gammon, the mission support commander for the 319th Refueling Wing.