PAUL LEWIS / WASHINGTON DC
The US Department of Defense is once again redrawing its development roadmap for unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAV) with a planned cancellation of the Boeing X-45B demonstrator programme in favour of a longer-range system capable of meeting the needs of the US Air Force and US Navy.
The move, while giving a boost to Boeing's redesigned X-45C, opens the door to fresh competition from Northrop Grumman and possibly Lockheed Martin.
Boeing has received the greenlight to begin designing the X-45C, which retains the X-45 fuselage, married to a bat-shape wing offering twice the range of the now stillborn X-45B. The joint Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)/USAF demonstration of the two smaller X-45As will continue, but the $460 million awarded to Boeing in 2002 to develop the X-45B as an initial operational system by 2008 will be diverted to the X-45C. Boeing has also briefed the navy on the X-45C.
The USN, like the USAF, has the need for extended endurance, but as vehicle size increases, there is the danger of outgrowing the available space on the navy's carriers.
"When you look at UCAV, the largest part of the system is the central nervous system and that certainly is going to be common. The challenge is: how much additional commonality can we get? Until the navy defines its requirements, I can't tell you what the vehicle will look like," said George Muellner, Boeing senior vice-president air force systems in an interview earlier this month.
The USN is keen to preserve competition for Phase IIB of the UCAV-N programme, a carrier compatibility demonstration. The navy plans to fund both the Boeing X-46 and Northrop Grumman X-47B. "The navy does not want to go the path of the USAF and commit too soon. With neither the X-45A or X-45B cutting it, the USAF wants more competition and the joint programme office is a way of revisiting this," says an industry official.
Whether Northrop Grumman plans to evolve the yet-unseenX-47B into a more robust joint design or pursue a different approach to challenge the X-45C is unclear. Another potential contender is Lockheed Martin, which has been shut out of both DARPA programmes and is looking for a way in. Northrop Grumman was meanwhile expected to fly its privately-funded X-47A Pegasus UCAV demonstrator over the weekend.
Source: Flight International
