Army Finds One Million Reasons to Cheer its Pilotless Aircraft Fleet

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5/25/2010

A display of U.S. Army hardware at the Pentagon today celebrated the darlings of military aviation, unmanned aircraft.

The occasion was what Army leaders called a historic milestone for the service’s unmanned aircraft fleet: The completion of one million flight hours.

Army unmanned aircraft surpassed the one-million-hour mark April 14, with 1,002,731 hours flown. Most of the flying (about 88 percent) took place over Iraq or Afghanistan. Officials point out that it took Army UAVs 13 years to complete the first 100,000 flight hours. When U.S. forces first went into Iraq, the Army only had a handful of systems in the inventory. Today, there are more than 1,000 UAVs that fly an average of 25,000 hours a month in both conflicts. The Army plans to train more than 2,000 UAS operators and maintainers in 2012 — a roughly 800 percent increase in the course of a decade.

The superstars of the Army’s unmanned warplane fleet are the Shadow and the Extended Range Multi-Purpose (also known as Sky Warrior) aircraft. The Army plans to acquire more than 300 of these two variants during the next five years. Nearly a hundred aircraft already are in the inventory. Most of the Army’s UAVs today are small, hand-launched reconnaissance aircraft called Ravens.

Based on current Army plans, the fleet over time will become much more technologically sophisticated, and will rival the capabilities of the U.S. Air Force. The current inventory includes 11 Sky Warrior systems, six Hunters, 89 Shadows, 1,368 Ravens and 16 vertical-lift hovering aircraft. Each system includes four aircraft.

Increasingly more of the Army’s UAVs are being equipped with advanced sensors, networking systems and weapons, which effectively gives the Army capabilities to conduct advanced aerial warfare.

Army officials insist that its UAVs are not in competition with the Air Force and are not intended to duplicate capabilities that already exist. Army commanders have argued that the Air Force’s Predator UAVs are good enough for “theater level” surveillance but not sufficient to support ground forces’ needs for real-time video of their immediate surroundings.

The Army uses UAVs “tactically,” says a spokesman. For example, if an infantry unit on the ground is about to enter a building that is suspected of being occupied by enemy fighters, a UAV flying over that building can show the enemy combatants running out the back.

Army leaders said they want to expand the role of unmanned aerial vehicles in warfare beyond intelligence gathering to become a vital component of attack, transport and resupply missions. The service recently unveiled the “Unmanned Aircraft Systems Roadmap” that outlines the Army’s plan to develop a large fleet of UAVs over the next 25 years, when most aviation missions are slated to transition to predominantly unmanned systems. Some missions, such as cargo resupply, will be performed mostly autonomously, while others, such as attack and strike, will be performed mostly by remote operators.

One of the more exciting developments in Army aviation, officials said, is the increased use of “manned-unmanned teaming,” which allows the streaming of UAV video into Apache helicopter cockpits. Eventually helicopter pilots will be able to control UAV sensors. The Kiowa Warrior scout helicopter often flies with a partner Shadow UAV, which gives the Kiowa pilot greater awareness of what is happening on the ground. When pilots are able to control UAVs from the cockpit, officials said, they will have multiple lines of sight on a target, and will be able to see more clearly what’s on the other side of mountains or buildings.

At the Pentagon display this morning, Tim Owings, deputy project manager for unmanned aircraft systems, said that in about a year, the Apache Block III helicopter will be equipped to command UAV payloads. Apache operators will not only be able to see the video that is being captured by a Shadow or Sky Warrior UAV but they also will have the necessary tools to direct the sensors. “It will be really seamless,” said Owings. “They won’t even have to communicate with the UAV operator” who will be flying the aircraft from a ground-based control station.

Posted at 1:57 PM by Sandra Erwin | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

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5/25/2010

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