Its six feet long, has seven foot wings, comes in its own launching case and weighs 135 pounds. Commanders will be able to fly eyes well over the horizon at sea or land without a pilot or even a runway with a new, portable unmanned aerial vehicle called the Neptune under development by DRS Technologies. The battleship gray bird with collapsible wings for easy storage can be set up for pneumatic launched within minutes, says Jeff Singleton, business development communications manager for Ft. Walton Beach, Fla.-based DRS.
In the air, its powered by a two-stroke, 15 horsepower engine and can stay up for about three-and-a-half hours before it drops to the surface via parachute for recovery. Singleton says it has an operational range of about 50 nautical miles, with an ISR platform that is able to note distinguish vehicle or ship details from about five kilometers away.
At about 1 1/2 kilometers it can recognize people, and can tell from about 600 meters what theyre doing, he says.
While the UAV is capable of being flown remotely and even landed on skids, typical missions would include a programmed flight and recovery after parachute drop, Singleton said.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
All it needs now are couple JDAMs, laser guided missiles, and a funny hat strapped on it.
Mass produce this for Navy & Army.
Expand optical sensors & GPS & test on US Mex border.
Do add mini weapons?
OR add IF larger model made.
Launch from missile tubes or torpedo tubes.
Must have In Field Today
Is it just me or are we relying on more and more expensive and fallible equipment to do the job? I ask in all seriousness? Is it necessary for all our gear to be insanely expensive? I am all for a well equipped military but some of this stuff reminds me of a kid in a candy shop and it’s not like we have a lot of extra money laying around.
as opposed to the cheap and infallible equipment we have available? maybe you’d like to send a UH60 with a fully manned crew to go out and recon?
THAT way when they get blasted out of the sky, you can THEN have something ELSE to complain about.
This may be the first perfect spectrum of post responses ever achieved at DT.
Responder #1: Tongue-in-cheek (references to impossible payloads)
Responder #2: Advocacy, but could be tongue-in cheek (Make it insanely expensive and impossible to maintain!)
Responder #3:Clueless (Unfamiliar with the concept ‘relative’ costs, all that is missing is a reference to how many schools we could buy for the children with the same $)
Responder #4: Sanity Check (Who beat me to the punch responding to clueless)
Once upon a time lueless would be outnumbered about ten to one, but it is a sad truth that once the Clueless find your site that they tend to have infinitely more time on their hands than the rest (for some reason).
Yes Christian, this is a call (once again) to please start moderating the comments
Moderating is a full time job. Many internet forums have learned this one already.
Neptune sounds intriguing. At 135 pounds on the heavy side but that’s okay for Navy purposes (maybe build the launcher into the hull?)
For the Navy this may revolutionize things in the same fashion that seaplane spotters did in the 20s/30s.
Weapons may not be justified, depending on targets…if fighting modern navies, weapon systems simply expose the UAV and cause it to be shot down, and eliminate surprise for the USN. If hunting pirates, on the other hand…
I think the idea of the UAV having its own launcher is that it doesn’t HAVE to be launched from any vehicle, like a ship or sub. Honestly, they could just bring a couple on board whatever vessel needs them, set them up, and push the button. I’d say that’s better than having a UAV slaved to a battleship’s missle tube. Plus, 135 lbs. is nothing for a small forklift. Load it up on a truck, take it out in the middle of nowhere, and 3 guys could set this thing up in no time.
And as far as weapons are concerned, the only way any DoD organization is gonna use weapons on this thing is if it’s being controlled by a person. Someone capable of making those kind of decisions. Not some algorithmic program that decides who’s a threat. I’ll tell you what they should do though. Put some high-altitude capable GAINS munitions on the RQ-4. Now that would be sweet, tangoes would never even see the delivery, just a small dot dropping silently toward them…
AMMO,
What is GAINS? I suppose for etiquette purposes, we should just assume most people here at least know more about current weapon systems than average, but that most of us probably know the weapons that have been around at least since GW1, Clinton era and early GWB, but not necessarily all of the post 9/11 toys.
I wonder if neptune can be launched from RHIBs. It would be ultra-sneaky to launch a UAV from the unexpected small boat (“that’s funny, where is the UAV launching from? There are no big ships in the vicinity”)
Buy lots of Neptunes to lower costs. Maybe joint purchase with Coast Guard. Neptunes could find use for SAR, counter-drug, counter-piracy, scouting, etc.
50 nm is excellent range so I’m not complaining. I just hope there are enough missions available today for it.
Who wrote this originally? “…can be set up for pneumatic launched within minutes…” IS that really what Mr. Singleton said?
“…ISR platform that is able to note distinguish vehicle or ship details…”
I can relate to most of the comments, I am just having a hard time getting past the lack of attention to detail in the story itself on the part of the author and editor.