EMAD
Air Force Master Sergeant Jonás Matías works in the Deployment Section, responsible
for supporting military operations on the ground.
of coordinating the work of all the
analysts and intelligence advisors and
interact with the aircraft crew; an
Imagery Analyst non-commissioned
officer (NCO); an officer and an NCO
in the Surveillance area (led by the
officer), whose mission is to monitor
vehicle movements on the ground and
analyse their features in an attempt
to identify what kind of vehicles they
In order to carry out their missions,
pilots and sensor operators must attain
the Mission Ready qualification, which
is achieved after having successfully
completed —at the unit itself and
within approximately six months—
two courses: the Initial Qualification
Training and the Mission Qualification
Training.
As far as pilots are concerned,
their key challenge is to fly an
aircraft from a ground station on
highly automated missions and with
a crew comprising the sensor operator,
analysts, communication technicians,
etc. In exchange, pilots and operators
gain valuable experience in ISR and
get the chance to fly a remotely piloted
aircraft as advanced as the Phoenix.
ISR CAPABILITIES
The peculiarity of the AGS Force is
that it is the only ISR unit in which
data are captured and analysed
simultaneously in real time. Moreover,
the data captured are based on radar
technology instead of electro-optical
cameras, enabling to operate without
light or cloud limitations and detect
moving ground vehicles, or even low
altitude flying helicopters, known
as a GMTI (Ground Moving Target
Indicator) capability.
Spain is represented in the
ISR Squadron by two Mission
Director officers who take charge
are, their origin and their destination;
and an NCO in the INTEL Cell, in
charge of producing the most detailed
intelligence reports.
Pre-training for all of them is
mainly focused on intelligence,
either as imagery analysts or radar
operators. “Since there are members
from 25 different NATO nations,
basic personnel training is very
diverse and, thus, the challenge is to
benefit from all that knowledge and
expertise to form working teams that
use the same procedures”, says Navy
Master Sergeant María Teresa Acal, a
specialist in Tactical Systems.
For Army Staff Sergeant Daniel
Castrillo, a specialist in intelligence
and security, the other major challenge
is that most countries represented in
the Force (including Spain) do not
have an organic GMTI capability in
their Armed Forces, “so virtually the
first year of their assignment in the unit
is devoted to ongoing aircraft training,
in particular in ISR capabilities”.
EXPEDITIONARY CAPABILITY
The AGS Force offers the possibility
of projecting the necessary elements
to the area of operations in order to
EMAD
Navy Master Sergeant María Teresa Acal, a specialist in tactical systems, and two
servicemen from the multinational unit analyse data received during a mission.
20 Revista Española de Defensa April 2021