The U.S. Air Force has certified a team of special agents to operate small autonomous systems, known as sUAS, as the service works to improve drone system operations. The milestone focuses on building expertise that can be carried into technical operations units in the field.

In a first for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, the group is now certified both to operate the Skydio X10D and to instruct other personnel on the aircraft. According to the Air Force announcement, the model can assist missions requiring “an eye in the sky.”

Six personnel completed a weeklong course at AFOSI headquarters in Quantico, Virginia. They became the first group of instructors positioned to take the capability back to technical operations units and expand qualified use of the system.

“We not only learned how to operate the drones, but also how to properly instruct other individuals on how to fly successfully to meet mission needs,” Special Agent Logan Trigg, assigned to the 2nd Field Investigations Squadron Technical Operations Program, said in the announcement.

Trigg is now set to train the entire 2nd FIS in drone operations so every agent can become certified. The stated goal is to ensure the squadron has the capability to “attack the mission effectively.”

AFOSI plans to use the “train-the-trainer” model to grow the program beyond the initial six certified personnel. The office says the capability could support surveillance, outdoor crime scene work, protective service support and other operations that require aerial monitoring.

The Quantico course divided its instruction between classroom study and practical flight work. Agents completed about 16 hours in the classroom, covering airspace, Federal Aviation Administration requirements and mission planning before moving into roughly 16 hours of flight scenarios shaped around the AFOSI mission.

One scenario required a student to raise the aircraft to roughly 400 feet, identify a vehicle’s license plate and then track that vehicle for a mile. The exercise put the X10D’s aerial observation capability into a mission focused setting.

A separate nighttime exercise tested another part of the aircraft’s sensor package. Using the X10D’s thermal camera, agents were tasked with locating a person hidden in a wooded area, giving the students a practical search challenge under darkness.

The training format paired regulatory and planning material with scenarios involving the aircraft’s camera systems. Agents moved from studying airspace and Federal Aviation Administration requirements to operating the drone during flight exercises built around AFOSI mission demands.

AFOSI’s work on the capability began in 2024 with Detachment 111 at Edwards Air Force Base, California. That detachment served as the working pilot program while the office assessed how the aircraft could support its technical operations mission.

“Det. 111 helped establish the proof of concept for a broader expansion,” Special Agent Scott Zawacki, AFOSI Technical Operations program manager, said in the release. The certification of instructors gives the office personnel who can bring that capability to units in the field.

The technology has not yet been used in a real AFOSI case, according to the announcement. Even so, demonstrations are showing how the system can support field operations involving crime scene documentation, reconnaissance and spatial data capturing.

Those demonstrations give agents a way to evaluate the X10D across several missions before operational use in an actual case. The examples described by AFOSI range from tracking a vehicle for a mile to using thermal imaging to locate a hidden person at night.

The effort is intended to spread instruction through personnel who can return to their units and teach others. That approach allows the first certified group to serve as instructors while technical operations teams build their own certified operator base.

Five Skydio X10Ds are scheduled for use by technical operations agents in January 2027, the release said. The announced fielding will follow the office’s certification work, demonstrations and development of instructors capable of training additional agents.