The US Army used its first Best Drone Warfighter competition not just to test skills, officials say, but to identify what makes a top drone operator — and who in the force is best suited for the job.
Rather than training every soldier to fly drones, the Army is using competition to identify the skill sets of top drone operators and whether there are specific roles within units that would make the most sense for working with uncrewed aerial systems.
The effort reflects a broader shift from treating drone flying as something for all soldiers to approaching it as a specialized skill set that requires the right aptitude, training, and sustained practice.
The inaugural drone competition took place this week at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, gathering teams from across active, Reserve, and National Guard units. There were no requirements on what types of soldiers could participate or where they came from.
Rather, “it was just send your best UAS operators,” Col. Nicholas Ryan, director of Army UAS Transformation at the Aviation Center of Excellence, told reporters, prompting a mix of operators with different backgrounds and expertise.
Over three days, soldiers competed in multiple events, testing their piloting skills. The first was an obstacle course that operators navigated using first-person-view drones.
The second was a hunter-killer scenario in which teams used a reconnaissance drone to survey an array of targets and decide which were highest priority for simulated strikes with one-way attack drones. The competition didn’t involve any kinetic strikes; instead, soldiers flew the drones into nets on the targets.
The third event was focused on innovation. Soldiers could build, modify, and test their own drones.
Ryan said that the Army was taking notes throughout the competition on who the top operators were, calling it talent management.
“At the end of the day,” he said, “it’s not about receiving trophies or awards,” it is about identifying what sets the top drone operators apart and figuring out how they developed those skills. The goal, he said, is to understand “what lessons can we take from this to find out who the best operator is and how they became the best operator. What skills and resources and training allowed them to become the best operator?”
Soldiers in the US and Ukraine have noticed that gamers make excellent drone pilots, as do soldiers who have experience piloting hobby drones.
“That’s something we’re absolutely looking at right now,” Ryan said.
Army leaders have previously noted a correlation between soldiers who grew up playing video games — or who are active gamers — and drone proficiency.
Troops who game have shown quick reflexes, precise hand-eye coordination, and strong spatial awareness that make them competent with drones.
At an exercise in Germany last fall, a US Army captain told Business Insider that the top pilots were soldiers who “when they got off on Fridays, then go and play video games.”
The Army has been restructuring its approach to drone warfare, rewriting its training and focusing on integrating soldiers with small drone training into front-line units. Lessons and approaches are being shared across the service, building a broader doctrine on how the Army is adopting drones.
Ryan said that the service is realizing that flying drones needs to be a dedicated assignment. “You can’t be a squad rifleman and a drone operator,” he said, explaining that “it’s one or the other because you have to have the level of skill and expertise in operating and employing the drones. That’s what you have to be good at and train at and focus on for most of your time.”
Other Army officials said efforts like the competition were demonstrating where drones best fit in a formation and what aspects of training are most important to maintain these highly perishable skills.
For the most part, soldiers flew their drones successfully, but the Army did take note of communication breakdowns as soldiers went through the hunter-killer lane, specifically getting drones into position and identifying and simulating strikes on targets.
“That’s an example of something we didn’t anticipate, but it’s absolutely standing out as that is something we as an Army need to do better on,” Ryan said. “If we’re going to proliferate these drones and want them to be more effective and lethal, we just need to improve on how our soldiers talk to each other to communicate when they’re using them.”
In future iterations of the Best Drone Warfighter competition, the Army hopes to include kinetic elements as well as electronic warfare and jamming to better replicate real-world scenarios.
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