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

This arti­cle first appeared in AviationWeek​.com.

The first Space Based Infrared System (Sbirs) mis­sile warn­ing satel­lite bound for geo­syn­chro­nous (GEO) orbit is on track for deliv­ery to the U.S. Air Force by the fourth quar­ter of cal­en­dar year 2010, accord­ing to its manufacturer.

This will be a major mile­stone for the $10.4 bil­lion Sbirs pro­gram, which has under­gone mul­ti­ple restruc­tur­ings, cost over­runs and delays. Delivery of the first GEO satel­lite is at least 7 years later than planned and cost esti­mates have exceeded pre­dic­tions by billions.

During a speech at this year’s Strategic Space con­fer­ence here hosted by the Space Foundation, the gen­eral over­see­ing Strategic Command said he is wor­ried about poten­tial gaps in cov­er­age for some mis­sion areas in part because satel­lites are being deliv­ered later than planned. U.S. Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton used Sbirs as an exam­ple; all of the pre­ced­ing Defense Support Program (DSP) satel­lites have been launched, and the Sbirs sched­ule has repeat­edly slipped.

Following deliv­ery, the inte­gra­tion of GEO-​​1 onto the rocket will take 45–60 days in prepa­ra­tion for launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla., accord­ing to Rick Ambrose, vice pres­i­dent of sur­veil­lance and nav­i­ga­tion sys­tems for Sbirs prime con­trac­tor Lockheed Martin. GEO-​​1 will aug­ment and even­tu­ally relieve satel­lites in the exist­ing DSP constellation.

Thermal vac­uum test­ing is slated for com­ple­tion on GEO-​​1 in the mid­dle of this month, Ambrose adds. The tri­als include three cycles each of hot and cold envi­ron­men­tal test­ing; the satel­lite is on its final round of test­ing in cold tem­per­a­tures at Lockheed Martin’s Sunnyvale, Calif., man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­ity, Ambrose said dur­ing a Nov. 3 inter­view with Aviation Week.

Following this round of tests, about 30 days will be set aside to replace some small parts with issues dis­cov­ered dur­ing the tri­als. One exam­ple is the replace­ment of a part that included tin, which is not suit­able for use on the spacecraft.

In the first quar­ter of cal­en­dar year 2010, the full-​​up space­craft will undergo the Final Integrated System Test (FIST) period, a series of tests on the entire sys­tem in ambi­ent conditions.

Read the rest of this story, see how IEDs are like Ivan’s first space shot, won­der when’s the Brit car­rier com­ing in and see why Boeing might need Joe the Plumber from our friends at Aviation Week, exclu­sively on Military​.com.

– Christian

This arti­cle first appeared in Defense Technology International.

Thales U.K. has been awarded a �150-​​million ($245-​​million) sup­ply and in-​​service sup­port con­tract for the Surveillance and Target Acquisition (STA) suite of FIST, the U.K. Defense Ministry’s Future Integrated Soldier Technology program.

The STA suite will, Thales says, com­prise weapon sights, obser­va­tion equip­ment and target-​​location sys­tems from var­i­ous sup­pli­ers that are designed pri­mar­ily for close-​​quarters bat­tle (CQB).

FIST will improve the capa­bil­i­ties of dis­mounted infantry in all envi­ron­ments, day and night. The pro­gram fol­lows a requirements-​​driven approach to equip­ping teams of sol­diers with an inte­grated fight­ing sys­tem that can be net­worked. Other parts of the pro­gram include command-​​and-​​control soft­ware, com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tems, sit­u­a­tional aware­ness devices and body armor. Some 35,000 FIST sys­tems will be deployed with the British Army, Royal Marines and Royal Air Force.

Thales is a prime con­trac­tor. Details of the STA award were dis­closed on Sept. 8, dur­ing the Defense Systems and Equipment International show in London.

The STA pack­age con­sists of almost 11,000 suites of equip­ment. Initial deliv­er­ies are planned for November 2010, in time for train­ing infantry units prior to their deploy­ment to Afghanistan in early 2011. Full con­tract deliv­er­ies are due to be com­pleted in June 2014.

The first pack­age includes ther­mal sights sup­plied by Qioptiq of the U.K. Thermal imag­ing sys­tems are report­edly the best choice for Afghanistan, where the level of starlight or ambi­ent light from man­made sources is too low to sup­port image-​​intensifying sys­tems. Thermal imag­ing also has ben­e­fits in improv­ing the abil­ity to see through cam­ou­flage and aid­ing sol­diers in iden­ti­fy­ing con­cealed weapons and impro­vised explo­sive devices. While con­cealed man­made objects can be invis­i­ble to the naked eye, they stand out in stark con­trast against their back­ground on infrared (IR) spec­tral bands.

In the next five years, Qioptiq is sched­uled to deliver more than 4,000 weapon sights, des­ig­nated FIST Thermal Sight. The sight is equipped with an uncooled ther­mal core and a 640 X 480-​​pixel for­mat. It offers an enhanced man-​​machine inter­face, inte­grated IR laser aimer for improved tar­get iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and an inte­grated red-​​dot CQB sight.

Qioptiq will addi­tion­ally con­vert more than 4,000 Common Weapon Sights from Pilkington Optronics and its own Maxikite2 night-​​vision sights for oper­a­tion with the red-​​dot CQB sight.

Read the rest of this story and check out a host of other great sto­ries from our friends at Aviation Week, exclu­sively on Military​.com.

– Christian

This arti­cle first appeared in Aviation Week & Space Technology.

In the midst of a deeply entrenched iden­tity cri­sis, the U.S. Air Force is turn­ing to tech­nol­ogy as the poten­tial answer to some of its prob­lems.

Air Force Chief Scientist Werner Dahm is con­duct­ing a sweep­ing “Technology Horizons” study to lay out tech­no­log­i­cal oppor­tu­ni­ties that could pro­duce use­ful appli­ca­tions for the ser­vice.

“I don’t think in the his­tory of the Air Force we’ve been at a turn­ing point like this. Maybe the clos­est was the Sputnik launch,” Dahm tells Aviation Week. “What does the Air Force do when it is faced with a rad­i­cally dif­fer­ent future? Part of what it does is reach into its sci­ence and tech­nol­ogy domain.“

The study will look 20 years ahead, with an eye toward imple­ment­ing near-​​term invest­ment deci­sions aimed at pro­duc­ing rel­e­vant mil­i­tary sys­tems. “We are not talk­ing about pie in the sky,” Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz said last month.

The Air Force spends roughly $2 bil­lion annu­ally on sci­ence and tech­nol­ogy projects, as much as the rest of the Defense Dept. spends on sim­i­lar research. The goal of Dahm’s review is to iden­tify those projects that could real­is­ti­cally change how the Air Force accom­plishes its mis­sions — such as the advent of the GPS con­stel­la­tion. The results are expected in late February.

Air Force Secretary Michael Donley and Schwartz entered office last year with a slew of imme­di­ate prob­lems, includ­ing mis­man­age­ment of the nuclear arse­nal and ram­pant pro­cure­ment mis­steps. The global finan­cial reces­sion has also tight­ened the Pentagon’s bud­get amid the wars in Iraq in Afghanistan.

“We are going to have to envi­sion and artic­u­late things that are real­is­ti­cally doable in the likely bud­get envi­ron­ment that we are going to face in the next decade or two,” Dahm says. There has been much crit­i­cism of the Air Force’s sharp focus on air supe­ri­or­ity, which led it to pro­cure fifth-​​generation fight­ers at great expense. Some say this focus came at the sac­ri­fice of other efforts, such as irreg­u­lar war­fare (IW) tech­nolo­gies.

“What we have to do is to fig­ure out how do we aug­ment [today’s capa­bil­i­ties] with some care­fully cho­sen new capa­bil­i­ties that allow those sys­tems to con­tribute to all of the threats that we face today — the IW threat, the cyber-​​threat and [oper­at­ing] in the space envi­ron­ment,” Dahm says.

The study is being exe­cuted by 36 lead­ers from acad­e­mia, the defense research com­mu­nity, major com­mands and indus­try. They are bro­ken into three work­ing groups — air, space and cyber. The groups began their efforts soon after in the study’s June 18 launch. The sec­ond phase begins this month and is “where a lot of gold will lie,” Dahm says. The par­tic­i­pants will address “cross-​​domain” tech­nolo­gies that could enhance warfight­ing efforts in a num­ber of areas and across the spec­trum of major con­flict oper­a­tions and insur­gent fights.

Read the rest of this story, see an ejection-​​seat view of the Parthenon, pon­der why the Aussies are scared of subs down under and roll out the stars and stripes for Euro-​​Hawk with our friends at Aviation Week, exclu­sively on Military​.com.

– Christian

This arti­cle first appeared in Aviation Week & Space Technology.

U.S. Army avi­a­tion lead­er­ship has been strate­gi­cally redis­trib­ut­ing the $14.6 bil­lion in Comanche fund­ing among its var­i­ous mod­ern­iza­tion pro­grams since the heli­copter was can­celed in 2004. But the well is due to dry up soon, and the ser­vice is for­mu­lat­ing a strat­egy to pro­tect its resources.

“Army avi­a­tion has done very well,” says Brig. Gen. William Crosby, pro­gram exec­u­tive offi­cer for avi­a­tion. Recognition of the Army’s high oper­a­tional tempo “keeps us pretty well funded, but the real­ity of bud­gets are com­ing down. We have to be fru­gal with our assess­ments.“

The first step in cre­at­ing a real­is­tic pic­ture of the future is com­plete. The Aviation Study II, char­tered by Lt. Gen. J.D. Thurman, Army deputy chief of staff, con­cluded with chief of staff approval for the for­ma­tion of a 12th com­bat avi­a­tion brigade, a reor­ga­ni­za­tion of resources to come in the next 12–18 months. Exploration will also con­tinue into the best way to inte­grate and deploy unmanned aer­ial sys­tems in com­bat.

Moreover, $400 mil­lion aimed at improv­ing train­ing will help grow the body of stu­dent heli­copter pilots at Ft. Rucker, Ala., to 1,400 from 1,200. The funds should also alle­vi­ate what avi­a­tion branch chief Maj. Gen. James Barclay calls a “train­ing bub­ble.” At one point, 800 stu­dents were wait­ing up to six months to tran­si­tion into advanced air­craft. That “bub­ble” has been reduced by half, Barclay says. A fleet of new Apaches and Black Hawks will help elim­i­nate the prob­lem entirely by 2012.

Army avi­a­tion has not faced any fund­ing short­falls since the can­cel­la­tion of Comanche. Funding for avi­a­tion has actu­ally increased by 40%, accord­ing to a recent study by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). But the good news is tem­pered by eco­nomic real­ity. “We don’t know the future,” Barclay says. “Most of us who have been doing this for 30 years real­ize you’re just wait­ing on the next deci­sion, the next [bud­get plan­ning cycle].“

The GAO agrees, and rec­om­mends that the ser­vice incor­po­rate some of that uncer­tainty into its 2010 Army Aviation Modernization Strategy, pri­mar­ily through assess­ing the poten­tial effect decreased fund­ing might have and how the Army will deal with the con­straints. The GAO also wants the Army to press ahead with the Joint Future Theater Lift pro­gram, which has stalled as the Air Force, which favors a short-​​takeoff air­craft, mulls its piece of the require­ments.

The Army’s cur­rent plan through 2010 includes upgrad­ing exist­ing sys­tems, devel­op­ing new ones and procur­ing com­mer­cially pro­duced equip­ment and air­craft such as the Lakota UH-​​72A Light Utility Helicopter (LUH). The Army has com­mit­ted to buy­ing 345 EADS-​​built LUHs, 210 of which are des­tined for National Guard duty. Every LUH fielded, says Col. Neil Thurgood, the Army’s Utility Helicopter pro­gram man­ager, frees up another Black Hawk to be sent into com­bat, where the Black Hawk is in high demand.

The Army may be able to par­lay the early LUH suc­cess (86 air­craft have been deliv­ered) into cost sav­ings, as other ser­vices and even other coun­tries add to the order book. Late last year, the Navy signed a $30-​​million con­tract for five Lakotas for the test pilot school at NAS Patuxent River, Md., and Thurgood says sev­eral coun­tries have expressed inter­est in Foreign Military Sales of the aircraft.

Read the rest of this story, check out the German EuroHawk drone, engage in the Army’s doc­trine wars and see how The Hill plans to fix ship­yards from our friends at Aviation Week, exclu­sively on Military​.com.

– Christian

This arti­cle first appeared in Aerospace Daily & Defense Report.

The U.S. Army and Marine Corps’ long-​​term solu­tion to their light tac­ti­cal vehi­cle needs — the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle — is on track to hit all of its mile­stones, accord­ing to pro­gram man­agers who spoke with reporters Oct. 6 at the Association of the U.S. Army con­ven­tion in Washington.

“The trucks are about a third of the way through the 27-​​month TD [tech­nol­ogy devel­op­ment] phase, and we’ve been through the pre­lim­i­nary design reviews,” says Kevin Fahey, pro­gram exec­u­tive offi­cer, com­bat sup­port & com­bat ser­vice sup­port. “Over the next cou­ple months we’re going to do the Critical Design Reviews,” with more the first week of October, and two more in November.

Fahey said that between now and the end of the year, the plan is for the three remain­ing con­trac­tors in the com­pe­ti­tion to sub­mit their armor coupons and bal­lis­tics, and early next year in April/​ May is when they will get the pro­to­type vehi­cles with about a year of test­ing on them.

Despite ear­lier plans call­ing for every­one from the Canadians to the British to the Australians to the Israelis to par­tic­i­pate in JLTV devel­op­ment, only the Australians remain, and India also has started to show inter­est.

“The Australians have given us notice that they want to par­tic­i­pate in the next phase of the pro­gram,” accord­ing to Fahey, “while we just found out that India also wants to par­tic­i­pate in the next phase of the pro­gram.” But for the moment, the Australians are the only full par­tic­i­pant in the next phase. India has only entered into dis­cus­sions about par­tic­i­pat­ing in the JLTV pro­gram.

When it comes to the rum­blings about the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected All-​​Terrain Vehicle (M-​​ATV) muscling in on the ter­ri­tory already carved out for the JLTV in future plans, Bill Taylor, deputy PEO, says not so fast.

“I think there’s room for both pro­grams. In fact, I think there’s a need for both pro­grams. M-​​ATV, like MRAP, was dri­ven by urgency and the need to sat­isfy that urgency,” Taylor said. The M-​​ATV, he said, focuses almost exclu­sively on crew sur­viv­abil­ity, like MRAP, but JLTV is tak­ing the long view. Both pro­grams share 320 mis­sion require­ments, but JLTV is going after an addi­tional unique set of 580 require­ments that M-​​ATV is not required to sat­isfy, he said.

Read the rest of this story, see what LockMart’s work­ing on with bal­loons and hand drones, check out L3’s pri­vate eyes and see how SWORD cuts the rotor clut­ter from our friends at Aviation Week, exclu­sively on Military​.com.

– Christian