ARTICLE

April 2003

Army to Field Four Classes of UAVs

by Sandra I. Erwin

In the Army of the future, a brigade would bring to the battle no less than 200 unmanned aircraft, ranging from small platoon-class vehicles to larger, high-endurance aircraft equipped with heat-seeking missiles.

The service’s overarching modernization program, the Future Combat System, will develop four classes of UAVs. Program officials are sketchy on the details of what exactly each class will look like. So far, they have outlined draft guidelines for potential contractors, who will be competing separately for each class of UAVs.

Class 1 will be a platoon-class small aircraft. Class 2 will operate at the company level, class 3 will be attached to the battalion and class 4 to the brigade commander. Each FCS brigade would have 36 class-1, 36 class-2, 12 class-3 and 16 class-4 aircraft.

The FCS program generally has been described as a network of ground and air vehicles—both manned and un-piloted. A team of Army and Boeing Co. FCS project officials are working on the specific requirements for UAVs, said Maj. Gen. Joseph L. Yakovac, program executive officer for ground combat systems.

The most “undefined” of the four classes of UAVs is the brigade-level aircraft. The funding and design of the FCS class-4 UAVs closely are tied to the Army’s next-generation helicopter, the Comanche. The service cut more than 600 helicopters out of the program (about half of the total), on the assumption that they would be replaced with UAVs.

For that reason, it is possible that the class 4 may include two types of aircraft, said Lt. Col. John Kelleher, a UAV program officer at Army headquarters.

One option would a futuristic aircraft, called UCAR (unmanned combat armed rotorcraft), now in development by three competing industry teams. The Army has not yet decided whether the UCAR will be rotary or fixed wing, Kelleher said. The UCAR could end up as the companion to the Comanche or as a division/corps level tactical UAV, known as the extended-range multipurpose aircraft, or ERMP.

The Army funded the ERMP program before FCS got under way, Kelleher explained. “Now, we want to integrate ERMP with FCS. ... We need to synchronize those two efforts.”

Yakovac did not discount the possibility that the Army also may buy a new high-altitude, long-endurance UAV under the FCS program. “A decision has not been made if the Army is going to buy a separate ERMP or a separate HALE. Or how the companion to the Comanche fit into all this,” said Yakovac.

He noted that the A-160 vertical-takeoff Hummingbird UAV—now in developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency—could fill the ERMP role. “If the Army decides to go with rotary wing for ERMP, the A-160 would fit that requirement.”

Ideally, the Army would like to consolidate the ERMP program into the FCS class-4 UAV, said Yakovac. “We are asking industry to bid on class 4. If it looks that it meets the ERMP requirement, we could combine the two.”

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