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

This arti­cle first appeared in Aviation Week & Space Technology.

Rather than wait­ing for the U.S. Army to flight-​​test the Fire Scout vertical-​​takeoff unmanned aer­ial vehi­cle (VTUAV), Northrop Grumman is invest­ing heav­ily in a test pro­gram of its own. The company’s impa­tience may well pay off — when the Army finally makes a deci­sion about air vehi­cles for its new Brigade Combat Team Modernization (BCTM) pro­gram, Fire Scout will be ready to go.

The dis­so­lu­tion of the Army’s Future Combat Systems (FCS) and can­cel­la­tion of the manned ground vehi­cle com­po­nent has forced the Army to re-​​examine its require­ments as it moves for­ward with the BCTM. In the case of the UAV piece of the mod­ern­iza­tion plan, the Army will field its Class I UAV (a small VTUAV weigh­ing 50 lb.) in Fiscal 2011 and 2012. The next VTUAV to come online as part of the BCTM is a Class IV UAV — in this case, Fire Scout. The Army selected Fire Scout for the FCS in 2003, but brigade com­bat teams are not sched­uled to field the air­craft until 2014, accord­ing to cur­rent requirements.

The Navy, on the other hand, is already fly­ing its MQ-​​8B Fire Scout from the USS McInerney on coun­ternar­cotics mis­sions in the Caribbean. The ser­vice con­tracted with Northrop Grumman in 2004 to cre­ate a Fire Scout vari­ant to use on the Littoral Combat Ship. The air­craft has exe­cuted 600 hr. of flight test­ing and 110 take­offs and land­ings from the McInerney.

Subsequently, Northrop Grumman is not wait­ing for the Army to make its move. On Oct. 6, the com­pany announced that its corporate-​​owned Fire Scout, dubbed White Tail, flew under the com­mand and con­trol of a new company-​​developed Stanag 4586-​​compatible ground con­trol sta­tion (GCS). Stanag 4586 is the NATO inter­op­er­abil­ity stan­dard for unmanned air­craft. The com­pany flew the White Tail in late September at Yuma Proving Ground, Ariz., pro­mot­ing the flights as hav­ing demon­strated the func­tion­al­ity of its own GCS. Future demon­stra­tion flights will also use the company’s GCS, includ­ing ongo­ing flights at Yuma in prepa­ra­tion for the Army Expeditionary Warrior Experiment at Ft. Benning, Ga., early next year.

But the GCS is just one piece of Northrop Grumman’s multi-​​pronged invest­ment strat­egy. Joe Emerson, the company’s Fire Scout Army pro­gram man­ager, says Northrop Grumman is part­ner­ing with plat­form man­u­fac­turer Schweitzer on invest­ing in a new rotor. Adding pay­loads adds weight, and the “fastest fix is to change out rotor blades. It’s the first area we’re look­ing at,” says Emerson.

Read the rest of this story, check out DARPA’s bomber­bel­ly­laser­plan, find out why it’s hard to get the Afghan army its bul­lets and see who’s to blame for bad pro­gram man­age­ment from our friends at Aviation Week, exclu­sively on Military​.com.

– Christian

This arti­cle first appeared in AviationWeek​.com.

The U.K.‘s Mantis medium-​​altitude long-​​endurance unmanned aer­ial vehi­cle (UAV) demon­stra­tor has com­pleted a series of test flights using the range at Woomera in Australia. The first flight was made Oct. 21, but was only revealed today. Several mission-​​representative tri­als have since been car­ried out, mark­ing the cul­mi­na­tion of phase one of the Mantis pro­gram, which has now been concluded.

The BAE Systems-​​led pro­gram is being jointly funded by the Defense Ministry and indus­try and is aimed at address­ing both poten­tial British and export require­ments for a UAV in this class. Phase Two of the pro­gram has yet to be agreed between the indus­try part­ners and the min­istry, with dis­cus­sions ongo­ing exam­in­ing a vari­ety of fund­ing mech­a­nisms to sup­port the next stage of the incre­men­tal devel­op­ment project. The Mantis, which has 65.6-foot wingspan, is the largest autonomous UAV to be built by the U.K. The rapid devel­op­ment pro­gram took 19-​​months from con­cept to first flight. The Mantis is intended to be able to carry electro-​​optical and radar sen­sors, as well as a range of air-​​to-​​surface weapons. BAE part­ners on the pro­gram include Rolls-​​Royce, Qinetiq, GE Aviation, Meggit and Selex Galileo.

Read how MAVs might jam the bad guys, pon­der China’s defense buildup and check out some sweet MP-​​RTIP pics from our friends at Aviation Week, exclu­sively on Military​.com.

– Christian