FEURY keeps TACPs in new theater safe

  • Published
  • By Benjamin Newell
  • 66th Air Base Group Public Affairs

HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, Mass. – The Full Motion Video Extension and Unified Relay program office here fielded FEURY in four months as a rapid acquisition action.

FEURY keeps Tactical Air Control Party Airmen safe behind the wire by increasing the availability of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance sources while they conduct air support operations. Additional FEURY sites multiply the amount of ISR available to units and give combat Airmen the edge over their adversaries, according to the TACPs who use them. The office rolled out its capability to a new theater this February after securing funding, requirements, drafting a contract and deploying personnel and equipment to the Area of Responsibility.

“The story here is speed,” said 1st Lt. Nathaniel Griffith, FEURY’s program manager with the Command, Control, Communications, Intelligence and Networks program executive office at Hanscom. “We first received this requirement in October and we were pulling video in the field by mid-February. We accomplished this with strong support from our contractor, a creative acquisition strategy and a lot of help from the team.”

The FEURY program office used existing equipment in this effort, reducing costs. Combat Airmen can now access video from any orbiting aircraft and call in close air support and direct intelligence-gathering missions without leaving forward operating bases, which reduces their exposure to enemy fire.

Previous FEURY efforts were similarly speedy. In 2017, the FEURY program office completed a nearly $9 million effort in 65 days. This latest effort cost nearly $5 million and doubled FEURY’s theater coverage, bringing the total FEURY sites to nine worldwide.

Griffith says FEURY’s usefulness to combatant commanders increases with every new site they activate. Each new networked location increases the coverage and reliability of every other site, and brings more protected TACPs into the fight.