Airmen at Creech AFB, Nev., held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the opening of the base’s new remotely piloted aircraft simulator facility. The 13,500 square-foot building currently has four simulators, but has room for an additional six units to support the training needs of the airmen at Creech, who control many of the Air Force’s RPA that operate in the skies of Afghanistan and elsewhere around the globe. “This [facility] will allow us to accomplish one of our priorities, and that’s to normalize our mission,” said Col. James Hecker, Creech’s 432nd Wing/432nd Air Expeditionary Wing commander. He added, “More simulators will help us become more combat capable. In the future, we’ll also have the ability to do distributed mission operations, which will help us work with other units.” Construction of the $6.7 million facility began in June 2009. It replaces the old 5,000 square-foot simulator building. The ribbon cutting took place on Dec. 19. (Creech release)
In the Space Force’s push to increase its consumption of commercial satellite capabilities, satellite communications stands out as the template. The question now is how broadly the Space Force will look to leverage additional SATCOM providers.