This article first appeared in Aerospace Daily & Defense Report.
Manufacturer BAE Systems is formulating its marketing of the Mantis medium-altitude long-endurance UAV demonstrator air vehicle in the U.S., following the recent kickoff of test flights of the U.K. version.
Mark Brown, BAE Systems vice president of unmanned aerial systems, is positioning the Mantis as a next-generation UAV. “When we talk about Mantis specifically, you’re talking about a theater/strategic platform that has the ability to satisfy intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance requirements and also be a weapons carrier,” Brown said.
Mantis is the largest autonomous vehicle ever built in the U.K., with a wingspan of 65.6 feet. Were BAE to build the Mantis for a U.S. market, a second, separate production line would be launched. Whether that line were based in the U.S. or in the U.K. is “an open question,” Brown said. The company is also open to partnering with another defense contractor, but “no decisions” have been made, he added. As to when the Mantis will make its North American debut, BAE’s U.K. liaison officer Matt Pearson would say only, “it’s certainly worth thinking about.”
Brown said Mantis is flexible. “We built this aircraft with manned standards in mind,” he said, noting the UAV was designed just like any other manned aircraft, from the twin engines to the logistics plan. “It gets us where we want to be — fully certified in any airspace,” Pearson said.
Read the rest of this story, see how much the expanded Afghan army’s going to cost and consider how close China is to stealth technology from our friends at Aviation Week, exclusively on Military.com.
– Christian
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Why on earth would America pour money into buying Mantis's? Reaper offers far more in a more mature package. There aslo seems to be nothing at all "next generation" as the BAE guy claims either. If anything it looks like a late 90's UAV and seems no more advanced than the first predator UAV's.
My money is on Mantis being dumped after a few years and my tax money effectivly wasted on this rather plain, dull and out of date already contraption.
Well the wingspan is about that of the Reaper according to Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAE_Mantis
and accordin to this article http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2008/07/22/2…
it can carry a payload equivilent to 12 Brimstone missiles, not the "equivilent" though so that could mean in weight not actually ability if you get me.
Reaper on the otherhand can carry up to 14 hellfire missiles with 14 hours endurance or 28 hours presumably unloaded and can carry a total of total of 1700kg in all.
The more I read about Mantis the more I facepalm when thinking how we've simply created a shittier version of Reaper which the RAF already operate! A job creation program is what it is it seems. Sad.
Jimbo thats pretty much all the british government has done for awhile. When you make it to expensive to operate your gonna lose the jobs. Something has got to give. Now im just trying to figure out why were following ya.
BTW any news on the large naval strick drone?
Yes you're quite right, I get to witness the idiocy of British government job creation programs with my own eyes all the time. I give up on the UK as we are a failed state now with a complete and utter loser for a PM.
It may sound awful and promoting terrorism but we actually need a new Guy Fawkes in this country to get the job done. It's the only way we'll escape this nonsense.
As for the naval strike drone; is the UK getting one? If so its the first i've heard of it but I might add it'd be utterly useless if operated by UK armed forces due to PC constraints that govern our armed forces. Watch on YouTube the really good program called " Ross Kemp in Search of Pirates" to see why, here's a link to the first part, it makes for sad and frustrating viewing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaBqHyPu9II
I'm emigrating as soon as I can from this hole.
What I would really like to know is how this UAV stacks up against others. I know it is larger than most, but what about the ordinance capacity, cruise speed, range, and on site duration?
Tactically, as noted, it seems pretty much a direct equivalent of the Reaper.
One interesting thing to note is that comment about ‘certified in any airspace’ – obviously this isn’t relevant over backwater provinces of Afghanistan – but I’d be interested to known how legally restricted an equivalent UAV (say MQ-9) is when trying to operate in UK airspace.
It sounds like they’re trying to sell it on the ‘soft stuff’ – in-service support, reliability, the autonomy/workload levels and what certification it can get (definitely a big deal for the UK for any sort of training as we have *much* more crowded airspace than the US). Most of which isn’t really something we can judge off a spec sheet.
Which doesn’t mean it’s necessarily all that good, of course, but there may be more to it than first glance.
An interesting point you've made about certifications. I did a quick bit of Googling and it seems Reapers are fully certified to fly in US airspace under FAA rules/regulations and have been able to for some years.
Now I don't know for sure but i'm guessing that certainly means Reaper would have no problems whatsoever getting certified for use in UK airspace.
I don;t want to seem to harsh without knowing ALL the facts but this Mantis is still looking like a rather crappy and unnecessary rip off of Reaper that is nothing but a jobs program.
I'm not convinced Mantis would end up more autonomous either and even if it did i'm not convinced that is definatly a good thing as autonomy can lead to more problems by virtue of what it is.
Hopefully this great site will follow the Mantis program closely, very closely in the future too /hint hint../
I suppose there’s also the question of the dreaded ITAR restrictions – given the trouble that has supposedly existed over technology access with F-35, it’s possible that the UK MoD decided it would like an MQ-9 Reaper equivalent that it can bolt whatever system it likes to.