RQ-7 Shadow

By 2007, US Army RQ-7 Shadow battalion-level UAVs had seen their flight hours increase to up 8,000 per month in Iraq, a total that compared well to the famous MQ-1 Predator. Those trends have gained strength, as workarounds for the airspace management issues that hindered early deployments become more routine. Some RQ-7s are even being used to extend high-bandwidth communications on the front lines.

The difference between the Army’s RQ-7 Shadow UAVs and their brethren like the USAF’s MQ-1A Predator, or the Army’s new MQ-1C Sky Warriors, is that the Shadow has been too small and light to be armed. With ultra-small missiles still in development, and missions in Afghanistan occurring beyond artillery support range, arming the Army’s Shadow UAVs has become an even more important objective. It would take some new technology, but that seems to be on the way for the US Army’s RQ-7B Shadow UAV fleet:

• Pieces of the Puzzle
• Contracts and Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings [updated]
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Orbiter

Flight International reports that Finland has picked Aeronautics Defence Systems’ Orbiter 2 UAV as its future tactical UAV, beating BlueBird’s SkyLite B for a likely EUR 23 million, 55-system contract. The contract signing is expected soon, and once that happens, Finland will join its Baltic Sea neighbor Poland as an Orbiter UAV customer.

Despite their small size and weight of under 10 kg, both systems require a vehicle-towed or mounted catapult for launch, and use parachute recovery. They offer similar performance ranges just above the mini-UAV class, with endurance of around 3.5 hours, and payloads that involve just a small surveillance and laser designation turret. A slightly larger Orbiter 3 variant is available that would have doubled endurance to 7 hours, and increased control range to over 100 km, but Finland appears not to have picked it. BlueBird touted the Skylite’s high-wind, all-weather capability, while the Orbiter can extend its operating control range to 80 km using ground data terminals. In either case, Finland is picking a small UAV with limited range and capabilities, in exchange for higher numbers at relatively low cost. Given the country’s dispersed defense doctrine, it’s a choice that makes military as well as financial sense.

P-8A: Sonobuoy drop

Sonobuoys are used to detect and identify moving underwater objects by either listening for the sounds produced by propellers and machinery (passive detection), or by bouncing a sonar “ping” off the surface of a submarine (active detection). They usually float, or have at least some part of them that does. Specialized sonobuoys can also detect electric fields, magnetic anomalies, and bioluminescence (light emitted by microscopic organisms disturbed by a passing submarine); as well as measuring environmental parameters like water temperature versus depth, air temperature, barometric pressure, and wave height.

Sonobuoys are generally dropped from aircraft or helicopters that are equipped with a means to launch them, and electronic equipment to receive and process data sent by the sonobuoy. They can also be launched from ships. This entry will discuss some of the new sonobuoys in use, and cover related contracts:

• Sonobuoy Types [updated]
• Contracts & Key Events, 2006 – Present [updated]
• Additional Readings
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• Here are the PPT slides from the Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV) Industry Day held by the US Army last week. The Defense Acquisition Board is expected to follow up on the future of this tentative MDAP by the end of the current fiscal year. There’s potentially about 3,000 new vehicles at stake at an Average Unit Manufacturing Cost in the $1M-$1.7M range with production starting between FY15 and FY17.

• The latest Aircraft Survivability [PDF] examines past and present live fire testing programs, as well as their current application to the CH-53K acquisition program.

• Northrop Grumman’s CEO Wes Bush would like Congress to ease restrictions on drone exports.
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• The US Navy has published its request for information to get a replacement for FA-18E/F and EA-18G Growlers “in the 2030 timeframe”, following a mention of the tentative aircraft in the latest 30-year aviation funding plan. This is a Pre-Material Development Decision (MDD) market survey, i.e. still very far from an RFP. Once interested contractors have expressed their interest by April 26, they will receive – provided proper levels of clearance – a classified Government Furnished Information (GFI) package that is meant to allow them to submit their response by June 29, 2012.

The desired capability and missions:

Puma AE team

The mini-UAV market may lack the high individual price tags of vehicles like the RQ-4 Global Hawk, or the battlefield strike impact of an MQ-9 Reaper, but it does have 2 advantages. One is less concern about “deconfliction” with manned aircraft, as described in “Field Report on Raven, Shadow UAVs From the 101st.” Mini-UAVs usually fly below 1,000 feet, and a styrofoam-like body with a 5 foot wingspan is much less of a collision threat than larger and more solidly-built platforms like the man-sized RQ-7 Shadow, or the Cessna-sized MQ-1 Predator.

The other advantage is mini-UAVs’ suitability for special operations troops, who are being employed in numbers on the front lines around the world. “Raven UAVs Winning Gold in Afghanistan’s ‘Commando Olympics’” details the global scale of this interest – and in July 2008, a $200 million US SOCOM contract for a breakthrough mini-UAV underscored it again. Now AeroVironment’s S2AS/ RQ-20A Puma AE is moving beyond Special Operations, and into the regular force.

• Mini-UAVs: Evolution & Advantages
• Aerovironment’s Mini-Mes
• The Puma AE [updated]
• Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings & Sources
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RQ-11: higher, faster…

In 2005 the RQ-11 Raven mini-UAV was enjoying positive field reports from Iraq. In November 2005, StrategyPage reported that the RQ-11 Raven was also turning heads in what it calls “the commando Olympics” of Afghanistan:

“In addition to all the cooperation, there’s also a lot comparing notes. One thing everyone has noted is the large number of useful gadgets American Special Forces troops have. The most envied item is the American Raven UAV.”

It’s an apt phrase. This Spotlight article looks at Special Forces related mini-UAV buys from a number of countries, spurred by requests from special operations troops in theater…

• RQ-11: Drawing Raves
• The Commando Olympics: Other Teams are Competing [updated]
• Additional Readings & Sources
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• South Korea’s Daewoo continues to expand its military shipbuilding reach. Fresh off wins in Indonesia (Type 209 submarines) and Britain (MARS support ship/ oilers), it has signed an MoU with Peru for submarines and “multi-role support ships.” To turn that into a contract, they’ll have to clinch a final deal with the government, but the MoU gives them exclusive negotiating rights. Peru currently operates 6 old U209 submarines, and could use some support ships built after the 1980s.

• North Korea’s rocket went ka-boom... less than 12 minutes into its flight. What next?

• India’s new Talwar Class frigate, Teg, has completed sea trials, and is scheduled for handover at its Russian shipyard on April 27/12.

• India stood up its 3rd squadron of naval surveillance UAVs, made up of IAI Searcher and IAI Heron UAVs. The southern INAS 344 squadron is in Tamil Nadu, joining its fellow squadrons to the west (Gurajat) and East (Kerala).

• Research funded by the US Navy’s Office of Naval Research (ONR) is using recently-improved friction-stir welding (FSW) techniques at the National Center for Advanced Manufacturing (NCAM) to see whether titanium could be used for shipbuilding. Using titanium instead of steel for ship hulls would reduce maintenance costs because you wouldn’t have to obsess about corrosion, and lower fuel costs – or allow bigger payloads – because titanium is lighter and stronger. But then that metal is much more expensive than steel and harder to work with. Titanium is used for piping in San Antonio class ships and that required the development of sophisticated welding techniques and craftsmanship too. Whether the Soviet Union was using titanium to build submarines during the Cold War kept CIA analysts busy in the 70s. Around the same time the ONR rebuilt its ALVIN submersible in titanium which allowed pretty deep dives.

• When you turn defense policy debates into arguments about who is creating most jobs, you end up with silly academic distractions.

• Admiral James Winnefeld, Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke at CSIS’ Global Security Forum 2012 yesterday. The topic of sequestration came up during the Q&A after his address [PDF]. Showing a position that’s in line with comments made by DoD Comptroller Robert Hale a few weeks ago, Winnefeld said:
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• The Pentagon’s 2013-2042 annual aviation inventory and funding plan is available via Bloomberg, in a context of aging aircraft. It says 5th generation assets will go from 7% of the current force of manned fighter aircraft to about 25% by FY 2022 based on a F-35 production ramp up. Fighter spending is about equal between the Air Force and Navy in FY 2013 but the next years see a gap in favor of USAF. Total spending (i.e. RDT&E, procurement, MILCON, and O&M) is projected to $770B in then-years over the next 10 years. See data tables and charts of DoD’s projected aicraft inventory at the bottom of this entry.

• DoD’s long term aicraft plan include a T-X trainer replacement “envisioned to begin production around FY18 with a planned IOC in FY20”, and replacements for T-45Cs and T-44s to be identified next decade. They expect the V-XX new presidential helicopter to begin operating in 2023. Further out, the 30-year plan mentions in passing F-X and FA-XX replacements to the F-22 and F/A-18, respectively.

• The Chinese Navy has begun using UAVs, deploying them on exercises around the South China Sea. Perhaps this will prod the US Navy, which has been the slowest adopter of the 3 services.
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Global Express

In late June 2009, the USAF awarded Northrop Grumman Defense Mission Systems Inc., of San Diego, CA an urgent requirement contract for its Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) System. At present, Northrop Grumman will help the USAF deploy BACN in up to 4 “E-11” Bombardier BD-700 Global Express (see also BACN-modified photo) ultra-long-range business jets, and in up to 4 EQ-4B Global Hawk Block 20 UAVs, for sustained deployment through 2015.

BACN is an airborne communications relay that extends communications ranges, bridges between radio frequencies, and “translates” among incompatible communications systems. That may sound trivial, but on a tactical level, it definitely isn’t.

• The BACN System
• Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings
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