PAUL LEWIS / WASHINGTON DC
The US Department of Defense (DoD) is further increasing expenditure in its 2004 budget on unmanned air vehicles (UAV) across the three services in a move to avoid having to fund one-for-one replacements of a large number of legacy manned platforms.Total spending on UAV procurement and research and development is set to reach over $1.4 billion in fiscal year 2004. This will include additional Northrop Grumman RQ-4A Global Hawk and General Atomics Q-1 Predator intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance UAVs, as well as money to continue development of unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAV) for the US Air Force and Navy and kick start the Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) programme.
All three of the USAF and USN's principal manned strike fighter programmes, the Lockheed Martin F/A-22, Lockheed Martin F-35 and Boeing F/A-18E/F, suffer cuts in planned procurement numbers in the FY2004 budget. The services will have to rely more on UCAVs as Lockheed Martin F-16s, F/A-18C/Ds and Fairchild A-10s are retired.
DoD spending on UCAV demonstration efforts will total $275 million next year and include a small amount of seed money to create a joint programme office to oversee USAF and USN efforts now managed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The USN has also secured money for its stalled UCAV-N programme and to fly the Boeing X-46 and Northrop Grumman X-47B demonstrators.
Another $101 million will be used to launch the BAMS with the aim of fielding by 2009 a long-range UAV capable of performing some of the Lockheed Martin P-3C/EP-3 patrol and intelligence gathering missions. The navy hopes to fund the first two systems in 2007, while the planned manned P-3 replacement, the Maritime Multi-mission Aircraft, will not be ready for a further five years. The US Army, similarly having had its planned purchase of Boeing Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanches halved to 650 machines, is being told to make better use of UAVs such as the planned Unmanned Combat Air Rotorcraft.
Source: Flight International
