LEMV Airship Sold Back to Manufacturer for a Song, and Future Data
October 2013: sold back. LEMV builder Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV) succeeds where it failed 6 months ago: the US Army sold the LEMV back to the company, for $301,000 or about 1/1,000th of the program’s cost. The alternative was to scrap the aircraft, which would have costed more according to the Army. DID spoke with HAV CEO Steve McGlennan, who was not in a position to yet clarify when the vehicle would return to the UK and to what type of customers it would be demonstrated. However Mr. McGlennan emphasized that the US Army will get data rights over future tests flights, for no extra charge. Beyond the headline-grabbing nature of the sale relative to the money spent, this may yet salvage some of the Army’s investment as it pursues other lighter-than-air programs. See LA Times: Army lets air out of battlefield spyship project.
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The rise of modern terrorism, sharply increasing costs to recruit and equip professional soldiers, and issues of energy security, are forcing 2 imperatives on modern armies. Modern militaries need to be able to watch wide areas for very long periods of time. Not just minutes, or even hours any more, but days if necessary. The second imperative, beyond the need for that persistent, unblinking stare up high in the air, is the need to field aerial platforms whose operating costs won’t bankrupt the budget.
These pressures are forcing an eventual convergence toward very long endurance, low operating cost platforms. Many are lighter-than-air vehicles or hybrid airships, whose technologies have advanced to make them safe and militarily useful again. On the ground near military bases, Raytheon’s RAID program fielded aerostats, and then surveillance towers. Lockheed Martin has also fielded tethered aerostats: TARS along the USA’s southern border, and PTDS aerostats on the front lines. The same trend can be observed in places like Thailand and in Israel; and Israeli experience has led to export orders in Mexico and India. At a higher technical level, Raytheon’s large JLENS aerostats are set to play a major role in American aerial awareness and cruise missile defense, and a huge ground and air scanning ISIS radar is under development under a DARPA project, to pair with Lockheed Martin’s fully mobile High Altitude Airship.
The Army’s Long-Endurance Multi-intelligence Vehicle (LEMV) project fitted in between RAID and HAA/ISIS, in order to give that service mobile, affordable, very long term surveillance in uncontested airspace. Its technologies and flight data may eventually wind up playing a role in other projects. This would help the Army recoup some of its investment, as it sold its prototype back to its manufacturer in the fall of 2013, for the price of a luxury car.
The Army’s LEMV
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The LEMV isn’t really a blimp. Technically, it’s something called a hybrid airship, which gains lift from 3 different sources. One is the same aerostatic lift that a blimp gets, from the same onboard helium. Another is aerodynamic lift, now that composite materials allow rigid, shaped hull designs that aren’t just balloons. The final element is vectored thrust from 4 diesel engines and vector vanes, which builds on aerodynamic lift.
That combination is very helpful, because it can eliminate one of the biggest problems with blimps: sensitive equilibrium. A conventional blimp must have more buoyancy than payload, in order to fly. If it has too much buoyancy, however, it becomes very difficult to land. That isn’t a big problem if the mission is to fly over a local football stadium, but if you’ve just offloaded many tons of cargo, or finished up a 3-week mission and burned about 18,000 pounds of fuel, it’s a different story. For a blimp, the problem could be solved with ballast, but it’s an inefficient approach that creates its own hazards and difficulties. For an unmanned airship, it may even be a non-starter. A hybrid airship’s varied sources of lift gives it more options, hence more flexibility. Ongoing research into technologies like hovercraft/suck-down skirts would offer even more flexibility on the ground.
In 2010 Northrop Grumman Director of Airship Programs Alan Metzger told The Engineer magazine that he expects LEMV to have about 3 weeks endurance, carry 2,500 pounds of payload, and travel at speeds between 30 – 80 knots/ He added that:
“When you do the maths on that you’re talking about $20,000 to keep the vehicle in the air for three weeks [DID: 3,500 gallons]. It’s vastly cheaper to operate than many conventional aircraft today… Some of the characteristics of our vehicle allow you to make trades between how long you’d like to stay in the air and how much cargo you’d like to carry. We have the ability to trade 23 days to go 1000 miles and carry 15, 20, 30,000 pounds… We’re green, we use a quarter of the fuel as the same payload of cargo aircraft… there are fewer moving parts. there’s less maintenance… Now we have the opportunity to show that a vehicle of this class and size can carry the required payloads, create the endurance and persistent surveillance that war-fighters are looking for.”
Fortunately, these 3 week missions don’t require a crew, but deploying to the mission zone at home or abroad means flight through civil airspace. That means manned flight options, in addition to remote piloting or autonomous modes. Piloting it has been described as being closer to operating a ship than to flying a plane, and winds above 23 mph are a challenge for the design team to tackle.
The team crossed the Atlantic, and included Northrop Grumman as lead, plus:
- Hybrid Air Vehicles Ltd. in Bedford, UK (HAV304 airship platform)
- Textron subsidiary AAI Corp. in Hunt Valley, MD (Makes the US Army’s OneSystem UAV/surveillance aircraft control & information distribution stations)
- DERA spinout Blue Bear Systems Research in Bedford, UK (flight control algorithms)
- ILC Dover in Kent County, DE (Airship manufacturer and designer)
- L-3 WESCAM in Burlington, ON, Canada (MX-15HDi and MX-20D E/O turrets)
- SAIC in McLean, VA
- Warwick Mills in New Ipswich, NH (Fabrics engineering)
A One System station at the launch and recovery site will operate the vehicle throughout its mission, while payload data will be processed and disseminated via the Army’s DCGS-A distributed common ground system.
Surveillance Options, and the Rise of the LTAs
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There are already many ways to perform aerial surveillance. Fighter aircraft can and do equip advanced surveillance and targeting pods. In Iraq, they often found themselves used in overwatch roles for short periods of time, and piled up a considerable number of flight hours doing these “non-traditional missions.” At $10-20 thousand dollars per hour operating cost, however, plus an additional $10 thousand or so per flight hour in recapitalization costs, fighters are not an affordable option.
Scout helicopters are more affordable, and can intervene like fighters if weapons are needed, but they are noisy and vulnerable, have very low endurance, and are still not cheap to operate.
UAVs can offer much lower operating and recapitalization costs than fighters or scout helicopters, and larger models are able to stay on station for 20-36 hours. That’s still a limited period of time, however, and their payloads are likewise limited by weight and aerodynamic restrictions. Those limitations have also traditionally meant limited fields of view, though heavy UAVs like the MQ-9 Reaper are beginning to field products like ARGUS-IS and Gorgon Stare to expand their view. At present, UAVs also crash much more often than manned aircraft.
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Manned propeller planes are a useful intermediate option between fighters and UAVs, with more carrying capacity, a much wider human field of view, and much better endurance and operating costs than fighters or helicopters. Iraq has used, and even armed, Cessna 208B Caravans for this role. HawkerBeechcraft’s MC-12 King Air twin-turboprops are quietly becoming stars of the Iraq and Afghan wars.
Integrating these 4 options with precision artillery fire, via organizational structures like the USA’s Project ODIN, has paid big dividends on the front lines.
So where do hybrid airships fit in?
The answer is tied to what they do best. They can operate from any small forward base, like a helicopter. Their operating cost is likely to be better than any other surveillance option, and so is their endurance, which can be measured in weeks. Modern airships have long since stopped using hydrogen, and the growth of composite structures gives them very interesting design options they’ve never had before. Unlike aerostats, they will be mobile rather than fixed. Speed will be less than any aircraft or even UAV option, however, so airships will perform best covering specific high-value areas, or assigned stations.
For the LEMV, that should have meant demonstration capabilities like a 3-week hover over an area at 20,000 feet, carrying 2,500 pounds of payload that includes communication relays, cameras, and radar sensors.
In that role, they can serve as steady communications relays, for instance, ensuring the groups of soldiers in mountainous areas never lose contact with one another, even if they don’t have direct line of sight to each other. They can track important convoys, key roadways, or other key infrastructure as semi-permanent overwatch escorts, monitor an urban area of interest to prep for major battles or enforce security, or focus on shutting down border chokepoints.
By restricting its focus to very achievable goals, the US Army was to fund a system whose sensors and surveillance equipment go well beyond RAID’s proven gear, without being anywhere near the bleeding edge of technology like HAA/ISIS. Within the Army, it would have provided a level of overwatch that goes well beyond its top-end MQ-1C SkyWarrior UAVs, offering heavy surveillance payload options like the USAF’s MQ-9 Reaper, but with much longer endurance. Finally, LEMV would contribute to funding operational hybrid airships, proving out the concept, and growing the industrial base for obvious future LTA projects like cargo lift. In the end, it didn’t play out that way.
Contracts & Key Events
FY 2011 – End
Pitched at airshows. After 1st flight, LEMV cancelled and sold back to manufacturer.
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October 2013: sold back. LEMV builder Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV) succeeds where it failed 6 months ago: the US Army sold the LEMV back to the company, for $301,000 or about 1/1,000th of the program’s cost. The alternative was to scrap the aircraft, which would have cost more according to the Army.
DID spoke with HAV CEO Steve McGlennan, who was not in a position to yet clarify when the vehicle would return to the UK and to what type of customers it would be demonstrated. However Mr. McGlennan emphasized that the US Army will get data rights to future tests flights, for no extra charge. Beyond the headline-grabbing nature of the sale relative to the money spent, this may yet salvage some of the Army’s investment as it pursues other lighter-than-air programs. See LA Times: Army lets air out of battlefield spyship project.
March 13/13: Buy it back? HAV reportedly tried to buy the LEMV demonstrator model back before the Army scrapped it, so they could use it as a demonstrator model for potential commercial clients. The Army has already spent over $300 million, and even a cheap return purchase would have made the most sense for all concerned, but the Army didn’t seem interested. WSJ, “Builder to Ask Army for Canceled Blimp”.
Feb 15/13: Canceled. The US Army notifies Northrop Grumman that it’s cancelling the LEMV, which is 10 months behind schedule in an 18-month development program, and was also reportedly 12,000 pounds overweight. That would have limited endurance to just 4-5 days rather than 3 weeks, unless the Army kept the airship at or below 16,000 feet. Even then, the estimate was closer to 16 days.
With Canada’s Discovery Air allowing a potential commercial option to lapse, LEMV’s cancellation leaves Britain’s Hybrid Air Vehicles in a precarious position. Sources: Aviation Week, “Technical Delays, Budget Cuts Kill LEMV Airship” | WIRED, “Army Kills The Military’s Last Remaining Giant Spy Blimp”
LEMV canceled
Aug 8/12: LEMV flies. The airship makes its initial flight from Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, NJ, with a crew on board. LEMV then becomes the subject of modern surveillance, via YouTube videos posted by local spectators.
The flight is about 16 months behind the original schedule – LEMV was supposed to be all the way to Afghanistan by the end of 2011. Those combat trials will now have to wait until early 2013. NGC’s director of Army programs K.C. Brown, Jr. told WIRED Danger Room the LEMV could also pull double duty, hauling 7-ton loads of military cargo as part of the Pentagon’s war drawdown. With that light load and slow speed, however, one LEMV isn’t going to make much of a dent in anything. US Army | Northrop Grumman | Defense Update | Nextgov | WIRED Danger Room.
1st flight
March 20/12: MZ-3A. The Navy’s only blimp will soon be operated by the US Army. MZ-3A is a modified civilian A-170 airship built by American Blimp Corp. The 178-foot MZ-3A military research airship has acted as a flying laboratory since 2006, and assisted in Gulf oil spill recovery operations in 2010. The Navy was going to mothball it, but an agreement with the Army will keep it tended for 12 more months, for use as a flying testbed. That’s a handy thing to have on hand for a program like LEMV.
The blimp’s maintenance base will continue to be at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, about 18 miles southeast of Trenton, N.J. Many of its research flights will be around the Chesapeake Bay, or over Florida during the winter. Gannett’s Navy Times.
June 20/11: At the 2011 Paris Air Show, emphasis on the LEMV’s cargo potential of 20 tons over 1,000 nautical miles is almost as strong as its emphasis on ISR. Inflation of the prototype LEMV’s sections is beginning for the US Army, but Northrop Grumman personnel reportedly believe that a commercial contract may be signed within a year. Flight International DEW Line.
Feb 1/11: The LEMV program completes its Critical Design Review, about 6 months after signing the contract. This is the 4th major milestone achieved by the program since contract award. Hull inflation is set for spring 2011, with 1st flight by mid-to-late summer 2011. The final acceptance long endurance flight is still expected by the end of 2011, but the Army Joint Military Utility Assessment in Afghanistan will now take place in early 2012. Northrop Grumman.
CDR
Jan 28/11: Northrop Grumman announces that its LEMV will be featured in its booth at Aero India.
Dec 22/10: Aviation Week reports on progress to date, and expected timelines.
Northrop Grumman has set up a number of test facilities in Melbourne, FL. HAV has begun construction of “Group A” mission and fuel modules, engines, and hard structures. ILC Dover is putting components together using Warwick Mills fabrics.
January 2011 will see HAV begin assembly of the “Group A” equipment. February 2011 will see the beginning of final LEMV assembly, as HAV and ILC Dover components are delivered to the final assembly site. Mid-May 2010 is set for full integration of the air vehicle, and July 2011 should mark the 1st flight, with a “safety pilot” on board. Long-endurance test flights at Yuma Proving Ground, AZ are slated for November 2011, to be followed very shortly by deployment to Afghanistan for a military assessment that is still slated for the end of 2011.
Nov 4/10: Northrop Grumman announces that its LEMV program team has completed its System Readiness Review (SRR), Initial Baseline Review (IBR) and our Preliminary Design Review (PDR) which looks at the hybrid air vehicle design, ground station infrastructure, and ground and airborne system software. The team is headed toward a Critical Design Review (CDR), by the end of 2011.
PDR
FY 2010
RFP, order, sub-contracting team.
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Sept 27/10: Sub-contractors. Textron subsidiary AAI Corporation announces an $8.9 million award from Northrop Grumman to provide the LEMV’s ground control station, using a variant of its Universal Ground Control Station. The AAI ground control station will be NATO standardization agreement (STANAG) 4586 compliant, assuring interoperability with many UAV control systems.
AAI’s launch-and-recovery ground control station will utilize multiple work stations to provide Level 5 command and control of the aircraft. That means complete control from takeoff to landing, the highest possible level of interoperability under NATO STANAG 4586. Additional work stations will be located at a fixed remote site for aircraft command and control, along with processing, exploitation and dissemination of information.
Sept 2/10: Sub-contractors. L-3 WESCAM announces an order from Quantum Research International Inc., at the direction of US Army G2, to supply the LEMV’s electro-optical surveillance and targeting sensors: 2 MX-15HDi and 2 MX-20D turrets per LEMV.
These turrets are dual-mode, offering rangefinding and targeting on top of their surveillance functions. Each turret will be fully equipped with 1080 pixel imaging cameras, and will have multiple HD feeds streaming from the cameras within each turret. They are also equipped with L-3 WESCAM’s Enhanced Local Area Processing (ELAP) to improve clarity, increase their effective range, and improves feature detection & recognition.
Deliveries of the initial set of 4 will begin in late 2010, and be complete by January 2011.
June 14/10: Northrop Grumman announces a $517 million contract to develop up to 3 LEMV hybrid airships for the US Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command. The 3 LEMVs will be designed, developed and test with their surveillance payloads within an aggressive 18-month time frame, then transported to the front lines for assessment and use by the military.
The LEMVs are not small airships, and are described as “just larger than the length of a football field” (about 100m). per the solicitation, they’ll have to sustain altitudes of 20,000 feet for a 3-week period, while carrying up to 2,500 pounds of sensors and communications equipment. Northrop Grumman designed their system to integrate into the Army’s existing common ground station command centers, and equipment used by ground troops in forward operating bases. See also: WIRED Danger Room.
Development contract
Feb 11/10: RFP. U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command issues solicitation #W91260-10-R-0005 for a “Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle.” The solicitation is amended several times, but its core is issued under Section 845 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year (FY) 1994, Public Law 103-160, as amended (Title 10 United States Code (USC) Section 2371). That long citation exempts the purchase from many US federal acquisition regulations and processes, with the intent of fostering the participation of companies that do not traditionally do business with the Department of Defense.
“The anticipated LEMV OTA will be for a (5) year technology demonstration inclusive of the fabrication of a LEMV airship, integration of payload and ancillary systems, test, and support for (5) years. The schedule requires performance testing within 18 months followed by additional test and demonstration conducted in Afghanistan over the remaining OTA term. The basic performance requirements for the LEMV airship include: optionally unmanned; 3 week endurance; 2500 pound payload capability; operating altitude of 20,000 feet above mean sea level, 16 kilowatts of payload power; multi-intelligence capable; supportable from austere locations; 80 knot dash speed and 20 knot station keep speed.”
Dec 30/09: Flight International reports on the US Army’s interest in a hybrid airship it calls LEMV (long-endurance multi-intelligence vehicle). Though much smaller than a HULA, LEMV would be a hybrid buoyancy/lift craft that would likely end up proving out associated technologies. The US Army aims to test the airship’s performance during the first 18 months, and deploy the airship into Afghanistan as a super long-endurance surveillance platform.
Space and Missile Defense Command will reportedly issue an RFP on Jan 29/10 (actual date: Feb 11/10), and an acquisition notice posted on Dec 29/09 asks for an “optionally manned” craft that can fly for up to 3 weeks, carry multiple intelligence payloads weighing up to 2,500 pounds/ 1,134 kg, provide 16kW onboard power, and reach speeds up to 80 knots/ 148km/h.
Additional Readings
- US Army Stand To! (July 21/09) – Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle
- DARPA – Next Generation Aerostructures [PDF]
- Hybrid Air Vehicles – Military surveillance.
- The Engineer magazine (July 12/10) – Meet LEMV: the first of a new generation of advanced military airship
The Lighter than Air Trend
- DID – DARPA’s HAA/ISIS Project Seeks Slow, Soaring Surveillance Superiority
- DID – JLENS: Co-ordinating Cruise Missile Defense – And More
- DID – The USA’s RAID Program: Small Systems, Big Surveillance Time
- DID – Walrus/HULA Heavy-Lift Blimps Rise, Fall… Rise? If hybrid airship technology proves out, maybe. SkyCat definitely has its eyes on airships of that size – and they’re not alone.
- Millenium Airship, Inc. Skyfreighter. See also their ITAMMS technology for thrust/lift.
- DID – Thailand Contracts Aria for Blimps, Communications
- DID – Canada Ordering Aerostats and Towers
- DID – Boeing’s Skyhook Shot: Redefining the Aerial Heavy-Lift Market? Their Skyhook 40 partnership aims to create a commercial airship in the 30-ton cargo class.
- Flight International (April 7/11) – US Air Force joins airship demonstration race with Blue Devil 2
- Aviation Week (March 25/11) – Airship Hopeful Reveals Lockheed-Designed SkyTug. Based, apparently, on the losing P-791 LEMV design.
- DID (March 2/07) – Return of the Navy Blimps?
- DID (March 17/06) – Energy Conservation Moving Up Pentagon’s Agenda. The Army Corps of Engineers forecasts that fuel availability and cost may become an important constraint on future operations. That has implications for transport and aviation.
- DID (July 6/05) – USAF Looking at “Near-Space” Blimps. Interest takes the next step via a positive formal report to the USAF.
- DID (Apr 26/05) – USN, DARPA See Blimps & HULAs Rising
