Images of single fuselage vehicle displayed at conference; overall strategy to be based on "swarm and proliferation"
Singapore is continuing work on its Lalee long-endurance unmanned air vehicle requirement, but is some years from delivering a capability, says Maj Alfred Fox, director of the Singapore ministry of defence's newly established future systems directorate. To perform airborne early warning, maritime and ground surveillance, and communications relay duties, the high-altitude system will work alongside Singapore's existing military surveillance satellite programme.
Initial Lalee concepts released in 2001 were based on a twin tail- boom design, giving rise to speculation that the air vehicle would be a derivative of the Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI)/EADS Heron/Eagle 1 system. However, during a 21 April presentation to the Unmanned Vehicles Asia Pacific conference in Sydney, Fox displayed images of a single fuselage air vehicle with a large, underslung phased-array radar. The images indicate a radar configuration with a surveillance range of around 150km (80nm).
Fox says Singapore's overall UAV development strategy is based on "swarm and proliferation", and that its planned Fantail and Skyblade systems provide the most immediate focus. The army plans to acquire the Singapore Technologies Aerospace Fantail vertical take-off and landing UAV (VTUAV) to meet a requirement to conduct urban operations.
Singapore's prototype Skyblade UAVis a hand-launched design based on a conventional airframe with a wingspan of roughly 2m (6.5ft). The system is being developed to meet an army requirement for a close-range system to fill the space between its Fantail VTUAV system and the air force's current IAI-supplied Searcher II UAVs. The Skyblade has undergone test flights in Australia and Singapore, but a timeframe has yet to be released for its entry into full production.
Believed to be electrically powered, the Skyblade air vehicle has a squarish profile fuselage with a traditional aircraft tailplane arrangement and a length of about 1.5m. Flight International understands that the design uses several fixed focal-length staring cameras, in common with many UAVs in its class.
While not mentioned by Fox, Singapore is also pursuing a possible low-observable tactical unmanned combat air vehicle requirement. Singapore Technologies Aerospace unveiled its MAV-1 demonstrator as a potential solution during February's Asian Aerospace 2004 exhibition, and expects to conduct a debut flight of the design shortly (Flight International 2-8 March).
Singapore intends to have all of its UAV systems controllable from a common set of ground stations, and to operate all tactical systems under army control. As the operator of the Searcher II, the air force is resisting the latter proposal.
PETER LA FRANCHI / SYDNEY
Source: Flight International
