MILAN — US soldiers are learning to recognize different types of drones by their distinct, buzz-like noises to better identify them during patrols, drawing lessons from the Ukrainian battlefield.
Honing that skill, along with practicing identifying aerial threats by sight, were key takeaways from the recent US-led Project FlyTrap 5.0 exercise in Lithuania, which ran from the first two weeks of May.
“No longer am I just scanning to my 12:00 and around me at ground level — we’ve incorporated this warfare to where we have to scan up and out as well … you have to now learn the sounds of the drones. Does it sound like one of the one-way attack ones coming in our potential direction?” said Sgt. 1st Class Tyler Harrington, a platoon sergeant for Eagle Troop, 2nd Cavalry Regiment, who led counter-drone tactics during the exercise, during a virtual media roundtable on May 14.
Specifically, this year’s edition was focused on detecting, tracking and defeating low-cost unmanned aerial systems.
The US Army has not yet formally introduced audio drone training into its curriculum, but Harrington told reporters that the field experience during Project FlyTrap can serve as a basic introduction to the concept.
“Some one-way attack drones have a higher buzz sound; they sound faster and more rapidly versus your enemy reconnaissance assets — they’re flying at a higher level, they’re up in the sky, hovering more of a flatter platform that is more easily detected,” he said during the roundtable.
In May 2025, the Ukrainian-English language news outlet New Voice of Ukraine reported that the Ukrainian military was able to identify Russian Shahed drones and decoys by sound, according to a statement from Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yurii Ihnat during a national telethon program.
More recently, the Ukraine-based non-governmental think tank CBA Initiatives Center published an investigation of Ukrainian troops who underwent training in six European countries between 2022 and 2025, highlighting that the over-saturation of surveillance and combat drones across the battlefield has changed prerequisites.
“Ukrainian recruits need to build muscle memory for the sound of approaching drones, and if someone shouts ‘air!’ everyone has to immediately fall on the ground, point their rifles in the sky and aim at a drone,” the research report said.
In addition, the war-torn country has been complementing this with the integration of passive acoustic sensor networks.
According to a paper published April 30 by the US Center for Army Lessons Learned, while Ukraine relies on a variety of detection systems, each one shares a similar architecture, including: low-cost directional microphones; local computers for classification, time-synchronized timestamps, and compressed detection messages. Through this, the closest shooters or small air defense teams are generally cued to neutralize first-person-view drones and this also allows for early warning.
The piece recommends that US leadership adopt and develop a similar approach, especially along NATO’s eastern flank.
