Airbus plans to develop an uncrewed version of its UH-72B Lakota military helicopter, with an eye toward a logistics role in the Indo-Pacific region.
The concept is being progressed under a US Marine Corps (USMC) programme called Aerial Logistics Connector, which aims to deliver a support aircraft capable of conducting ship-to-shore resupply flights.
The USMC’s plans for fighting possible conflicts in the Western Pacific involve deploying small teams of marines, equipped with precision weaponry, throughout the region’s many islands and straits, on missions aimed at denying access by enemy naval and air forces.
Such units would need regular resupply of everything from battlefield rations to long-range missiles, with supply links likely traversing dangerous waters or skies.
With that challenge in mind, Airbus thinks its UH-72B, modified to carry extra cargo and equipped with autonomous flight technology, is well positioned to fill the role.
“We’re talking on the order of a couple of thousand pounds of payload in order to keep those marines resupplied on remote islands in austere environments,” says Carl Forsling, business development manager at Airbus US.
Forsling spoke to FlightGlobal on 18 October, following the 2024 Association of the US Army conference in Washington, DC.
The company’s choice of a modified UH-72B, rather than a new-design aircraft, was driven by its goal for a low-cost platform that is easily sustainable with minimum personnel.
The Lakota is already in active service with the US Army. The UH-72A serves as the army’s primary helicopter trainer, with 223 examples. A further 212 UH-72As and 18 of the updated UH-72Bs fill operational roles domestically with the Army National Guard.
With the aircraft already in the inventory and under active production in Columbus, Mississippi, Forsling says the USMC could benefit from cost savings associated with existing sustainment infrastructure.
Modifying the H145-derived UH-72 for autonomous flight involves replacing mechanical flight controls with a fly-by-wire system, removing the cockpit and installing a new flight computer and sensors to manage pilotless operations.
Forsling says Airbus feels an unmanned variant holds more appeal than a conventionally piloted aircraft because the USMC “can expose it to the levels of risk they may encounter in the near-peer combat operation”.
“We think that unmanned is the way to go in terms of the size and weight trade-offs,” he adds.
Rival Sikorsky has already flown such technology in a modified UH-60A Black Hawk. The company is currently under contract from the Pentagon to adapt the autonomous system into a US Army-owned Black Hawk.
While that design still features a fully-functioning UH-60 cockpit, Airbus appears keen on removing the pilot control stations entirely.
An animation of the unmanned Lakota concept released by Airbus shows the standard outline of a UH-72B airframe, but with clamshell cargo doors where the nose and cockpit windscreen would normally be. These open, along with sliding side doors, to reveal a mostly empty interior space.
“The end state is going to be to get them a fully unmanned vehicle,” says Forsling.
Sikorsky, by contrast, envisions future UH-60s as “optionally piloted”, with autonomous flight systems allowing for operations either by one or two pilots, or by the autonomous technology.
Flight testing of the uncrewed Lakota concept is still some years away, with USMC budget documents setting the deadline in the Pentagon’s fiscal year 2029. However, Airbus has already completed an early ground demonstration of the concept.
The company on 14 October said it had completed its first ground demonstration under the Aerial Logistics Connector programme, validating the ability of the UH-72B to carry “specialised cargo”, without providing specifics.
Forsling suggests guided missiles as possible cargo, while smaller quadcopter-style aircraft could ferry food, water and small arms ammunition.
Demonstrations on the autonomous UH-72B are to continue through 2024 and 2025, according to Airbus. The USMC will make a decision about funding the development of a flying prototype based on those results.
