CONTACT: Maj. Jeff Brown, (315) 663-8734

FOR RELEASE: Tuesday, Oct 18, 2011

HANCOCK FIELD AIR NATIONAL GUARD BASE, SYRACUSE, NY (10/18/2011)-- The New York Air National Guard’s 174th Fighter Wing began flying MQ-9 Reaper training sorties out of Ft. Drum’s Wheeler-Sack Army Airfield in Watertown, NY today. These training flights will support the new MQ-9 Formal Training Unit (FTU) which will begin operating at Hancock Field next month. The FTU will train the next generation of Air Force active duty, Reserve, Air National Guard and foreign military MQ-9 pilots and sensor operators so they can provide real-time, persistent watch over troops on the battlefield using the MQ-9 remotely piloted aircraft. Approval to operate these training flights was received from the Federal Aviation Administration late last week. The Wing will initially fly approximately three (3) training sorties per week in the same exclusive, special use airspace as used for F-16 training. The 174th Fighter Wing was formed in 1947 and has flown a variety of aircraft over the years. Since December 2009, the Wing has conducted MQ-9 flights over Afghanistan from an operations center at Hancock Field Air National Guard Base in Syracuse. Hancock Field is also home to the only formal MQ-9 maintenance training facility in the U.S. Air Force and will stand up a MQ-9 aircrew training facility next month.