Members of the U.S. Army's elite 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment recently took part in a test at the U.S. Navy's Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake. Personnel flying onboard an MH-47 Chinook special operations transport helicopter directly controlled an MQ-1C Gray Eagle drone, which then launched a GBU-69/B Small Glide Munition at a target. Other individuals on the ground then redirected the small glide bomb to another target mid-flight. Altogether, this single experiment offered a window into U.S. military advances in manned-unmanned teaming, networked munitions, and artificial intelligence. U.S. Army Brigadier General Walter Rugen, the director of the Future Vertical Lift Cross-Functional Team within the service's new Futures Command, first disclosed the test at the Association of the U.S. Army's "Hot Topic" forum on aviation on Sept. 5, 2019. The experiment itself had occurred at China Lake in California on Aug. 28, 2019.

"We really worked hard on our unmanned systems, our architecture, our automation, and our interfaces up at China Lake against a real threat," Rugen explained. The officer added that his team at Futures Command is heavily focused, in general, on efforts to "weld the air-ground team tighter and tighter into a pretty solid punch for any potential enemy." Rugen offered limited details about the test scenario, such as what the final assigned target was or what it was supposed to represent, or the overall simulated threat environment. The original target was a surrogate surface-to-air missile system in a mock urban setting, according to Defense News.

US Army A US Army MQ-1C Gray Eagle drone in Iraq.

The test was reportedly the first time a Gray Eagle had launched a Dynetics GBU-69/B, an increasingly important weapon in the U.S. special operations community's arsenal. This 60-pound class small glide bomb is already in service on the U.S. Air Force's AC-130W Stinger II and AC-130J Ghostrider gunships. Rugen also disclosed that the individual on the MH-47 in control of the MQ-1C directed the drone to fire its munition at the target using a tablet device. It is not clear how long the two aircraft were working directly together. After the Gray Eagle released the bomb, personnel in a tactical operations center (TOC) on the ground took control of it using a two-way datalink. In March 2019, U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC), working in cooperation with Dynetics, announced they had completed an initial series of tests of the newest Block I GBU-69/B, which incorporates an X-Net two-way datalink from Raytheon.

Dynetics A GBU-69/B Small Glide Munition falls onto a target during a test.