Additional 18 month wait blamed on AC-130's difficulty in supporting missile datalink
Integration of the Northrop Grumman Viper Strike munition aboard a single US Air Force Lockheed Martin AC-130 gunship is expected to take another 18 months to deliver initial operational capability and will not be fielded to support near-term operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The delay stems from complexities associated with adapting the aircraft to support a missile datalink, dedicated tactical display, terminal engagement display and to fit launch tubes.
Conducted under an advanced concept technology demonstration, the effort will see multiple Viper Strikes carried in a battery of modified pneumatic dropsonde launchers. These will dispense the Viper Strike munitions tail-end first, with these equipped with global positioning system guidance and a datalink for off-bore sight attacks against multiple targets. Northrop says the average missile flight time to impact will be around 6min.
The system's introduction is expected to provide the AC-130 with a precision engagement capability above 20,000ft (6,100m). The platform's existing 105mm howitzer is limited to engagements from a maximum of 10,000ft.
The company is meanwhile seeking to reduce the weight of the Viper Strike weapon to enable its carriage by a wider range of aircraft and unmanned air vehicles.
"The [US] army told us recently that we need to reduce the weight and to put Viper Strike on the ‘Jenny Craig' diet", says Ron Nenner, Northrop Grumman Land Systems business development manager.
The company believes it can achieve a weight reduction of around 4.5kg (10lb), he told last week's Bristol University UAV Systems conference.
Work is also under way to equip the missile with a new tungsten fragmentation warhead to assist in the engagement of soft targets, while a non-explosive weighted version is also being considered for less-than-lethal applications. A data link-equipped version is also under development to engage multiple moving targets at maximum range.
The enhanced Viper Strike is a candidate for carriage by the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, Bell Boeing CV-22 Osprey tilt rotor and Northrop's RQ-8B Firescout UAV, Nenner says.
PETER LA FRANCHI/BRISTOL
Source: Flight International
