Northrop Grumman will unveil a naval unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV-N) demonstrator in late January/early February. The vehicle will be used to perform simulated aircraft carrier operations at the US Naval Weapons Center, China Lake, California, in late 2001.
The company is one of two contractors working on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)/US Navy UCAV-N programme. The other is Boeing, which is also working on the DARPA/USAir Force UCAV technology demonstration.
"We will leverage the USAF programme, but this is not necessarily 'son of UCAV'," says DARPA UCAV-N programme manager William Scheuren. "The requirements are sufficiently different to warrant a separate demonstration."
The USAF UCAV is being designed to perform suppression of enemy air defences (SEAD), with strike as a secondary role. The UCAV-N is intended for the surveillance role, as well as SEAD and strike, with all three missions equally weighted, says Scheuren.
In the programme's first phase, Boeing and Northrop Grumman are developing the concept of operations and defining the demonstration. UCAV-N differs from the USAF programme in that DARPA and the USN want to fly both demonstrators, rather than downselect to one design - in the UCAV's case, the Boeing X-45.
By not repeating aspects of the UCAV demonstration that are identical or similar in the UCAV-N programme, DARPA hopes to be able to fly both designs and maintain competition through to the start of the follow-on engineering and manufacturing development phase which, if pursued, could begin in 2008-10, leading to service entry in 2010-15.
The companies have studied a matrix of air vehicles ranging from vertical or short take-off and landing configurations to larger, high aspect-ratio designs. The matrix also covered potential operating platforms ranging from frigates to aircraft carriers. "We didn't say it had to be carrier-based, but it looks like it will be," says Scheuren.
DARPA cannot afford ship-based demonstrations, so it plans to conduct shore-based simulations.
Northrop Grumman plans to perform trail "traps and shots" at China Lake late next year. Boeing declines to discuss its UCAV-N demonstration plans.
Source: Flight International
