Tutorial: Flying with drones in the Army
Read the following description of an organisation and its problems.
Within the Royal Dutch Army, the drone unit is a unit of about 120 soldiers that operates with
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles or UAVs. The unit conducted two types of missions within Task Force
Uruzgan (TFU) during military operations in Afghanistan between 2006 and 2010. The first type of
missions were intelligence missions, for which the unit gathered information on local situations on its
own. The second type of missions were missions in which the unit assisted troops on the ground by
providing "eyes in the sky".
From 1996 until 2010, they operated with Sagem's Sperwer UAV. In Afghanistan, the drone unit
operated with 4 so-called "Sperwer systems": a sperwer system consists of 3 Sperwer drones, a
launching device (see picture below) and a navigation control unit.
A Sperwer is a so-called Short Range Tactical UAV. This means that the UAV is able to gather tactical
information with a maximum range of approximately 90 km. For gathering such information the
Sperwer is equipped with a camera that can record both at daytime and at night. The camera is able to
record in black and white only and has infrared capability for nightly operations. The UAV does not
have any weapons. Depending on the local circumstances, it is able to operate at a maximum height of
15,000 feet. The Sperwer UAV is 3.5 m in length and has a wingspan of 4.1 m. It is propelled by a
two-stroke petrol engine and is capable of carrying fuel for a four hour flight. To get a Sperwer UAV
in the air, a specific sequence of activities is required.
Firstly, the UAV has to be maintained according to strict aviation rules. Next, the assembly crew
prepares the aircraft for flight by filling the aircraft with fuel and carrying out pre-flight checks. After
that, the aircraft is put on a launching device, with the size of a large truck, and the launching crew
has – among other things – to make sure the aircraft is launched with a certain velocity. After that, the
operating crew in the Ground Control Center navigates the aircraft during its operations. When the
assignment is complete, the UAV lands by using its parachute and airbags. The transport crew then
moves to the recovery site to bring the UAV back to the base. When returning from a particular
assignment, post-flight checks determine whether the aircraft has to go to maintenance or only needs
preparation for the next launch and flight.
The activities carried out by the unit are schematically presented below:
The layout of 107 ASBt's workstations is schematically presented below.
Problems Experienced
During its operations in Afghanistan, the unit experienced a number of problems. For example,
interaction within the unit was not entirely unproblematic, as an employee states that
miscommunication between departments resulted in issues during landing the UAV. He states:
"There was a giant iron pole in the middle of the landing zone sticking out the ground...Ground
Operations guys used that pole as a centering tool to build the landing zone... They did not pay any
attention to the consequences... Things like that happened a lot..."
Also, UAVs crashed due to problems with sand and dust in its parachutes. An employee explains that
the maintenance department noticed this problem early on. This information however did not seem to
reach other departments. He states:
"Until we talked to the system expert and he said that they had problems putting the parachute into
the UAV. Then I got the idea that the parachutes must have been too big to fit in the parachute bay...
After the second crash we were able to conclude that there must have been too much sand and dust in
the parachutes... (...) They were simply too big."
The problems of the unit resulted in stress for the employees of the unit. As one employee states:
"We were pushed to our limits... sweat was pouring from my back all the time".
The case description is based on: Moorkamp, M., Wybo, J.L., & Kramer, E.H. (2016). Pioneering with UAVs at the
battlefield: the influence of organizational design on self-organization and the emergence of safety. Safety
Science, 88, p.251-260.
This information serves the purpose of this assignment, the actual situation within the unit was slightly
different.