Soldiers at the 25th Infantry Division’s “Lightning Lab ” at Schofield Barracks have been developing, building, tinkering with and modifying drones as technology that was once seen as science fiction becomes increasingly a fact of life in the 21st century.
The Lightning Lab is the division’s “innovation and development ” section, meant to look at how new technology can help support the division’s soldiers and leaders.
“There are only soldiers here, we don’t have any civilians that work with us, so no ( Department of the Army ) civilians, no contractors, ” said Lt. Col. Nathan Whitney, the lab’s director. “There’s all soldier tech.”
The 25th Infantry Division, sometimes called “America’s Pacific Division, ” is increasingly finding itself central to Army planning as it seeks to plan and reshape its forces for the possibility of a conflict with China in the Pacific region.
Both Chinese and American leaders have closely watched the war in Ukraine and the new tactics and tech that have come out of the conflict. The rapid proliferation of drones in battle by both sides of the conflict has garnered particular interest.
“We started off at the beginning of this year, we were given a task to build some drones, ” Whitney said.
The 25th has deployed across the region, notably to the Philippines, as it finds itself in an increasingly bitter dispute with Beijing over territorial and navigation in waters claimed by Manila. This year, as troops from the division prepared for the annual back-to-back Salaknib and Balikatan exercises in the Philippines in the spring, they knew that drones were going to play a particularly big role.
At the Lightning Lab, soldiers tested several models they built on the spot. Chief Warrant Officer 2 John Crutcher said that “from the manufacturing and assembly side of the house, we showed up with zero knowledge.”
When asked where the training to do it came from, Crutcher deadpanned “YouTube University, Google University, Reddit University—I’m a graduate of all three.”
The soldiers tested several designs. Among them was one they called the “Kestrel, ” named for the small bird of prey. They use the small, simple machines as “kamikaze ” drones making a one-way trip toward their targets, carrying an explosive and detonating as an operator controls it from afar.
“About four days before we left for the Philippines, we fleshed out which frame we were going to use, ” Crutcher said. “We went out to the Philippines, made 125 of them out there in the field, and took a lot of good feedback from the field, and with that feedback … about a week after we got back from the Philippines, we made this model we’re calling the ‘Falconet.’”
The use of small, armed drones has become increasingly ubiquitous on battlefields around the world, from Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria attacking government forces to Mexican drug cartels using them against their rivals and law enforcement.
In Ukraine, they have changed the game as relatively cheap drones have been used to destroy multi-million dollar tanks and other equipment. Ukrainian forces also have used drones to attack Russian targets deep behind enemy lines.
Crutcher said of the Kestrel that “it’s a very simple system. It’s about $12 in components, including the plastic to print the stuff.”
The rapid development of drones, and their increasing use across commercial and government sectors, means they’re no longer as specialized as they once were. Crutcher had been a drone operator before coming to Lightning Lab, with much of his career focused on larger drones like the infamous Predator and Reaper drones that have prowled the skies during America’s post 9 /11 wars doing targeted killings across the Middle East.
Soldiers at the 25th infantry division say that as drones become a more common sight on the battlefield—and as they increasingly become built, modified and used to deadly effect on the front lines—every soldier needs to understand them. Drone hobbyists are now being encouraged to test and share skills and tricks.
Lt. Col. Eugene Miranda, a 25th Infantry Division spokesman said that “a lot of that innovation is being powered down to the soldiers who are actually the users of the things. So we get that real-time feedback versus these age-old systems where it’s optimized only for the process of the planning, programming, budgeting and execution time horizon that just outpaces the pace of relevance.”
The 25th Infantry Division has been working to train soldiers well beyond the Lightning Lab to understand how drones work and how to use them, including courses on how to build and fix them.
“Part of the course is actually coming in for a couple hours and putting your hands on and basic soldering, ” explained Crutcher. “Because the idea is that we don’t want to be the single point of failure for the 25th ID. You can’t rely on a 13-person shop to mass manufacture at scale, right ? Anybody who knows how to do math is going to be able to figure that out pretty quickly.”
The Lightning Lab also has been looking out across Hawaii for ways to partner on getting parts and utilizing new technology, having been in talks with University of Hawaii and companies that soldiers have interacted with at conferences and trade shows.
Both military and Hawaii state leaders have been pushing for more manufacturing and 3D printing in Hawaii.
Honolulu Community College on Aug. 6 unveiled a new Advanced Manufacturing Program Facility. The new training center is part of an umbrella of programs funded by the U.S. military to seed education and training programs in Hawaii for highly skilled industrial roles and train people how to use advanced new tools and techniques. The new facility has $12 million worth of machines funded by the Office of Secretary of Defense’s Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment program.
“We need certain pieces of equipment and resources that we have a budget for, ” said Chief Warrant Officer 3 Aaron Dunson, Lightning Lab’s operations officer. They are looking for ways to partner with local Hawaii companies and “basically stimulate the economy as the nation needs to bring back drone manufacturing to the U.S. whereas China owns the market with DJI.”
DJI is the acronym for Da-Jiang Innovations, a company based in Shenzen, China, that has dominated drone production.
As of 2024 it accounted for over 90 % of the world’s consumer drone market, being used for everything from photography and surveillance, as well as for spraying pesticides and carrying packages and mail. DJI products also have have been used around the world by police forces, militaries and terrorist groups—though the company said it seeks to crack down on the latter.
U.S. officials have said there is some evidence that the Chinese government may sometimes be able to tap into the camera feeds of Chinese-made drones or remotely disable some components at critical times. Contractors seeking to build drones for the U.S. military market themselves as making “blue force ” drones—those without Chinese components, chips or software.
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