The Army’s push to scale up unmanned systems took a public step forward during the Drone Maneuver Competition at the National Drone Association Conference in Winter Park, Florida, where the Army Drone Team demonstrated speed, accuracy and teamwork, while showing how competitive flying can strengthen real-world operational skill, according to The Department of War press release.
The event came shortly after Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced an aggressive plan to field tens of thousands of drones in 2026 and even more in 2027, an initiative that he framed as a fight tonight philosophy focused on giving soldiers the tools they need to win.
Capt. Jacob Bickus, a UH-60 pilot now serving as the officer in charge of the Army Drone Team, said the group officially launched in September after a period of informal collaboration and early competitions.
Those first events included the International Drone Racing Tournament in the United Kingdom and a drone crucible at Avon Park in Florida, and they highlighted the need for a structured way to recruit skilled pilots from across the Army.
More than 120 soldiers applied, 50 were interviewed and the final roster was narrowed to 20 primary and 10 alternates from a wide mix of specialties, creating a team that blends infantry, aviation, military police, cyber and unmanned aircraft backgrounds into one learning-focused environment.
Pilots Use Competition to Build Tactical Skill
Among the group is Sgt. 1st Class Stephan Ringsmuth, an unmanned aircraft systems instructor at Fort Huachuca in Arizona, who developed his interest after attending the Special Operations Robotics Capability Course.
He began experimenting with modifying drones and helped design instructional programs for flight training, and he sees racing as a powerful tool for understanding precision control, coordination and the crawl-walk-run approach needed for safe instruction.
Ringsmuth said competition may look like a game, yet the discipline behind it directly improves the way soldiers learn to fly and the way they later teach those skills inside their units.
Capt. Nathan Rosenberger, an intelligence officer and artificial intelligence technician with the Army’s AI Integration Center in Pittsburgh, serves as the team’s primary FPV hardware specialist and lead pilot.
He has been racing competitively for a year and a half, building accuracy and technical refinement at high speeds. Rosenberger noted that racing is not a direct tactical simulation, although the precision required to thread a drone through gates at speed translates cleanly to missions where exact control is essential.
He also sees the team as a powerful recruiting tool, since public events show younger audiences that military technology can be innovative and exciting.
Competition Results and What Comes Next
The Army pilots finished the event with a strong showing, taking three of the top four times. Rosenberger recorded the fastest run of the competition, while Sgt. Kyle Brower of the 1st Special Forces Group and Staff Sgt. Brandon Schiller of the 1st Cavalry Division rounded out the top results.
The team’s performance not only marked their competitive growth but gave every pilot meaningful flying time under pressure, experience that Capt. Bickus said directly supports the Army’s broader effort to integrate unmanned systems more effectively across the force.
DroneXL’s Take
The Army Drone Team is doing more than racing, since their work shows how first person view flying is becoming a training ground for the precision and adaptability modern missions demand.
High speed courses sharpen fine control, and the mix of pilots from different specialties helps new ideas flow across the service, which matters as the United States moves toward fielding drones on a scale never seen before. Competitive flying will not decide future battles, although the accuracy and confidence it builds will shape the soldiers who will one day operate the next generation of battlefield drones.
Photo credit: Leslie Herlick, Aviation Center of Excellence
