First of all folks, please excuse the delay in posting. I am on a trip this week and wasn’t able to establish comms until today — and Ward’s off on a trip as well.
I’ll be up and running throughout the week, but the frequency may be down a bit from before.
Here’s a great piece of reporting from our friends at Aviation Week on a program I see as the future of Navy strike aviation. I got a few more tidbits from some sources at the Navy League confernece I’ll add a little later on this subject, but chew this over first and we’ll update soon.
This article first appeared in Aerospace Daily & Defense Report.
Northrop Grumman officials are promoting their unmanned strike aircraft being designed for the U.S. Navy as a “first-generation” unmanned combat aerial system (UCAS) with capabilities that include early missile defense intercepts.
The initial platform for a new strike fighter design is based on the company’s X-47B, but Northrop researchers are actually assembling an internal system that could fit into a variety of airframes, according to Scott Winship, vice president and program manager of Navy UCAS. The aircraft would incorporate “marinized low observability” and air-to-air refueling as well as advanced sensors, targeting and weapons.
However, Winship contends that a mix of fifth-generation Lockheed Martin F-35s and Northrop’s UCAS would be a far more powerful combination than Boeing Super Hornets teamed with the UCAS because of the F-35’s ability to penetrate foreign air defenses in combination with the unmanned aircraft.
Boost phase
With surprising candor, Winship identified important new capabilities for the unmanned strike aircraft including boost-phase intercept (BPI) of enemy ballistic missiles soon after launch and the carriage of new, compact, directed-energy weapons. He said options will include both laser and high-power microwave (HPM) weapons. Lasers are seen as a key BPI weapon while HPM is critical to electronic attack.
The new design also will address the U.S. military’s fading electronic-attack (EA) capability. The Air Force has failed to come up with a new EA capability for the near term, and by 2012, the Navy will retire its EA-6B Prowlers, which now provide that capability to the expeditionary air forces.
“The Navy is going to be out of the EA-6B business,” says Capt. Steve Kochman, manager of the EA-6B program. “There are ways the [Air Force need] can be filled, [but] I’m not endorsing any of them.” So, for now the program of record has the Navy stepping out of the Air Force mission and a replacement capability has not been approved. “Something will have to be worked out,” he said.
Next-gen stealth
“Broadband, all-aspect stealth is next-generation,” which is reflected in the cranked-kite, tailless X-47B design, Northrop’s Winship said. “It is also sensors — signals and electronic intelligence — and directed energy.” Conformal antenna arrays — eight on the top side of the aircraft and eight below — will also contribute to low observability and provide 360-degree coverage.
Advanced air-to-air missiles are being studied as part of the BPI mission as well as directed energy and rechargeable weapons that could be carried as palletized units sized for the weapons bays’ 4,500-pound payload carrying capability. Alternative weapons bay doors would be fitted with apertures for the directed energy weapons.
Northrop designers are looking for an aircraft that can fly 50–100 hour missions and that can go into the toughest, so-called fourth zone of enemy air defenses.
Navy and Marine Corps electronic warfare requirements officials later described the mission as “stand-in [jamming, electronic attack or strike] within a surface-to-air missile’s no escape zone.”
– Christian
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
freakin sweet! but what kind of weapons systems can be fitted onto it? also with the new “cyber threat” it is getting more and more possible for some 10 year old in California with bionic thumbs to hack in and hijack the thing. so my question is what kind of up-link security would it have? Also there is the possibility that someone would just make a jammer to disrupt the link the controller has with it.
Great stuff until hostile forces get them too.
At the risk of sounding like a two-note record, the SATCOM links our existing UAVs use are quite secure, and the NSA spends a lot of time and money keeping COMSEC safe. Furthermore, the SATCOM antennas used on the airframes are highly directional by nature and not very susceptible to jamming. (You’d have to be in a very precise “right place at the right time” to interfere with them, very difficult with a moving airborne platform.) There’s also the potential to use frequency-agile waveforms which are even less vulnerable to interference.
Lastly, I believe the latest generation of UCAVs have demonstrated a decent amount of autonomy. There’s no reason this shouldn’t continue to be the case. That being the case, an aircraft which finds itself out of positive control could either proceed along preprogrammed lines (drop payload A on GPS coordinates X,Y,Z) or return to base on its own.
Oh, and as for the post itself? Very interesting. The DEW option in particular.
Cool.
I’ve liked the X-47B from the get go, and I’m glad to here that its still going strong. And I to was a bit suprised about the lasers part….I think you could modify the X-47B aircraft for a laser payload….But I think it would have to be customized for that specific plane. meaning, I doubt they could come-up with some sort of module system…..like put the “Air 2 Air module” in the payload and its a fighter. put the “laser module” in it and it can take out missiles & ground targets.
that would be cool, but I dont see it being that (plug n play)easy.
Yeah, but, *lasers*. Stop resisting the inevitable and be overwhelmed by the gee whiz factor already. Robot jet stealth fighters with lasers? Faced with that level of coolness, the bad guys would have no option but to lie down and cry.
Lasers have been next generation for a couple of generations now. Look also for the activists to to make the use of them a war crime, probably under the geneva convention ban on blinding weapons.
Fund it, produce it & then Deploy them.
Test on US Mex border from Yuma base.
Or FT Bliss TX base.
Get this UCAV flying.
Major need for.
Lasers & miniguns or cannons & ext bombs.
Long range, inflight refuelling capable
Exactly who could possibly fly this thing? videogamers? i mean since it’s unmanned g powers don’t apply for it…let the ace combat veterans fly it…seems like a miracle for me, i am more for manned planes, people are more aware of their real sorroundings and like someone before said, you can’t hack this thing if it’s flown manually, if somebody jamms the radar this billion dollar baby drops down faster then rain. the only possible good reason i see in this project is, unmanned crafts provide maneuvers that are normal pilots are simply not capable of, the other thing is that pilots won’t get harmed but war doesn’t come without losses and i think combat jet pilots know what they are doing.
It is may be useful for some people who like playing the .
Even with a slow internet Tibia Gold connection downloading the client is a matter of minutes.