America's revolutionary high-altitude endurance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) programmes are back on track after a series of setbacks, say Pentagon officials in Paris.
USAF Maj Gen Kenneth Israel, Director of the Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office, says it has been a "great year for us".
The recent Pentagon Quadrenial Defense Review reaffirmed the place of UAVs in America's military strategy and backed plans to spend some $2 billion on developing a family of high flying UAVs to replace manned reconnaissance systems such as the Lockheed Martin SR-71 Blackbird and U-2.
Senior US officials at the conference all gave positive reports on the progress of the Alliant Techsystems Outrider tactical UAV, the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works Darkstar stealth UAV and the high flying Teledyne Ryan Global Hawk transcontinental UAV.
Outrider Programme Manager Rakesh Agarwalla says his company's programme is on target to complete its advanced concept technology demon-stration phase by May 1998 and to reduce the unit price of the air vehicle to between $300,000 and $350,000.
They are, however, replacing the revolutionary heavy fuel engine with a gasoline one as an interim measure.
Charles Heber of the Defense Advanced Research Programme Agency says the Global Hawk was on target to fly at Edwards AFB, Nevada, in November. Although the programme slipped nine months as precautions were taken to avoid a crash, "...there have been no show stoppers", he says.
The Global Hawk is expected to fly at 65,000 ft on 22h-long reconnaissance missions. The Pentagon has set the contractors a $10 million price tag target.
The much troubled Darkstar is expected to take to the skies again in November. DARPA Darkstar programme manager Harry Berman says the company has ironed out the landing gear, fight control and pilot simulator training problems that led to its crash in April.
Confidence in the improve-ments is high and new contracts have been signed for two more aircraft.
Source: Flight Daily News
