Unmanned combat-aircraft are coming, but they will not be going into battle any time in the too-near future. Harsh lessons learned developing relatively simple and inexpensive unmanned air-vehicles (UAVs) have made manufacturers and operators alike extremely cautious in planning the introduction of more costly and sophisticated uninhabited combat air-vehicles (UCAVs).
"The pot is getting ready to boil," says Armand Chaput, UCAV team leader with Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems. "The UCAV is about to happen, the only question is when." The ingredients are only now being assembled, and the recipe is not yet clear. From the stew of ideas, however, has emerged a near-term focus in the shape of a US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and US Air Force plan to demonstrate technologies for a UCAV able to perform air-defence suppression and mobile-target strike missions, which could be available around 2010.
Several other programmes are emerging. Lockheed Martin has received a six-month US Navy contract to define a family of UCAVs which could be launched from ships and submarines to attack high-value fixed targets or suppress enemy air-defences (SEAD) within a range of 1,100km (600nm). UCAVs are also one of the options being considered by the UK Ministry of Defence for its Future Offensive Aircraft System, to replace the Panavia Tornado, and Lockheed Martin is working with British Aerospace on a feasibility study.
International interest in the UCAV concept is high, according to Chaput. There is a common thread in that interest, with UCAVs being considered prime candidates for tasks which require greater persistence (endurance) than is possible with manned combat aircraft. Principal among these operations is the SEAD mission, which is risky for manned aircraft. Others include mobile-target attack, theatre ballistic-missile defence and combat air-patrol in support of peacekeeping operations.
Before unmanned combat-aircraft can become a reality, budgetmakers will have to be convinced that UCAVs can be built cheaply, operated reliably and used effectively. Developers will have to overcome a hefty scepticism about unmanned systems, fostered by expensive failures which have left the US military with few operational UAVs despite years of effort.
The US Navy and Marine Corps operate several Pioneer UAVs, produced by instruments company AAI and Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) and acquired as an interim system pending development of the IAI/TRW Hunter short-range UAV for the US Army and Marines. The Hunter programme was terminated, however, after much-publicised operating problems, to be replaced by the Alliant Techsystems Outrider tactical UAV. Now the Outrider programme is in trouble - late and overweight.
Ironically, the handful of Hunters kept active for training and demonstrations are now performing well, but the Army is intent on protecting the Outrider programme, which is finding its feet after a shaky start but which remains under threat. After the hard lesson of the Hunter cancellation, the US Department of Defense (DoD) will only proceed into production of the Outrider if the current two-year advanced concept technology-demonstration (ACTD) phase is successful.
ACTDs are intended to speed development of systems and get them into the hands of users for early evaluation of their operational utility. The first DoD programme to make the transition from ACTD to production is, in fact, an unmanned air vehicle - the General Atomics Predator medium-altitude endurance UAV. With the Hunter's ignominious end, and the Outrider's dubious beginning, the Predator is being held up as a rare example of a successful UAV. Deployments to Bosnia have boosted the stock of UAVs in general and the Predator in particular, and in August the DoD approved the system for production.
Predator's success has boosted hopes that two more-ambitious UAV programmes will reach fruition, despite faltering starts. The Lockheed Martin/Boeing DarkStar and Teledyne Ryan Global Hawk high-altitude endurance UAVs are being developed under an ACTD. They are envisaged as complementary, the "highly capable, moderately survivable" Global Hawk performing long-range/long-endurance stand-off surveillance while the "moderately capable, highly survivable" DarkStar penetrates enemy airspace to allow closer scrutiny. Both are required to cost no more than $10 million each.
The DarkStar programme is more than a year behind schedule following the loss of the first vehicle on its second flight, in April 1996. The second DarkStar is expected to fly in December. The Global Hawk programme, meanwhile, is at least six months late, and is scheduled for a first flight in November. Production decisions on both systems are planned for 2000.
The successful transition of these sophisticated, relatively expensive UAVs into production would bode well for UCAV development, not least because it would reduce the scepticism about unmanned systems among lawmakers.
It is this hostile environment in which the UCAV concept must take root and grow to fruition. As a result, while enthusiastic about the potential of UCAVs, manufacturers and operators alike are urging a cautious approach to their development. DARPA's planned $125 million affordable, persistent SEAD/strike UCAV demonstration, planned for 2001-2, is at the top of a hierarchy of programmes intended to explore and mature different UCAV aspects. Chaput identifies command and control, and particularly the ability to fly multiple vehicles, as the critical issue facing UCAV systems. This includes the ability to operate manned and unmanned aircraft together. The US/French Integrated Tactical Aircraft Control programme will investigate the control of multiple air-vehicles, while the USAF's Future Aircraft Technology Enhancement programme will demonstrate air-vehicle advances applicable to both manned and unmanned combat aircraft.
Cost is the key air-vehicle issue, Chaput says. "The consensus is that, if a UCAV is not substantially less expensive than a manned aircraft, it will not go ahead." The target procurement cost is "less than half that of an existing fighter," he suggests, while the operating and support costs should be "an order of magnitude lower." While about 80% of a manned aircraft's service life is expended in training, and 20% in combat and peacekeeping operations, the proportions would be reversed for a UCAV, Chaput says. Most of the training would be performed in simulators and air vehicles would spend most of their lives in storage.
While UCAVs could, therefore, be designed for fewer flying hours, say 2,000h over 20 years compared with 8,000h for a fighter, attrition in combat would not necessarily be higher, Chaput believes. "You design for attrition. Alower loss rate requires higher systems redundancy. UCAV redundancy will not be as high as in a manned fighter, but it will be pretty close - and substantially more than in current UAVs." For no other reason, he points out, than the fact that UCAVs will be carrying weapons over friendly territory. "The standards will be pretty high," he says.
Source: Flight International
