US Drones/UCAV General Thread:

Does russia posses x-37B like OTV ?

Cyberspec wrote:Somewhat strange decission considering the tests were deemed succesful...

The tests successfully proved that the design was flawed.

TheArmenian wrote:

Cyberspec wrote:Somewhat strange decission considering the tests were deemed succesful...

The tests successfully proved that the design was flawed.

Navy drone makes history with refueling maneuver

By Jamie Crawford, National Security Producer

CNN 6:29 AM ET, Thu April 23, 2015



Washington (CNN)—The latest version of unmanned naval aerial combat vehicles achieved another first on Wednesday when it conducted its first aerial refueling test, the Navy announced.  While flying off the coast of Maryland and Virginia, the X-47B, an unmanned vehicle designed to eventually operate off naval aircraft carriers, successfully connected to an Omega K-707 refueling tanker and received more than 4,000 pounds of fuel, the Navy said in a press release.

"What we accomplished today demonstrates a significant, groundbreaking step forward for the Navy," Capt. Beau Duarte, the manager for the Navy's Unmanned Carrier Aviation program, said in the release. "The ability to autonomously transfer and receive fuel in flight will increase the range and flexibility of future unmanned aircraft platforms, ultimately extending carrier power projection."

This is the latest in a series of firsts for the remotely piloted plane that the Navy hopes to develop into a battle-ready aircraft that can operate safely alongside its manned counterparts aboard aircraft carriers.  In 2013, an X-47B became the first unmanned aircraft to take off and land from an aircraft carrier, although all other aircraft were removed from the deck before the test flight. Last year, it became the first such aircraft to take off and land alongside a manned plane, an F/A-18 Hornet on the USS Theodore Roosevelt.

It was not known going into the test whether the aircraft would be able to effectively maneuver its probe used to take in fuel with the tanker's drogue, also called the basket, in the same way a pilot would be able to position their aircraft in a refueling operation.  "In manned platforms, aerial refueling is a challenging maneuver because of the precision required by the pilot to engage the basket," Duarte said. "Adding an autonomous functionality creates another layer of complexity."

A part of the Navy's Unmanned-Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike system, the X-47B will eventually be developed into follow on aircraft the Navy hopes to deploy into operation in 2020 or beyond.

Air Cargo don't post old links . We've seen it already .

Amazing.... but something the Soviets and Russians have been doing for quite some time with their unmanned cargo space craft docking on Mir and now the ISS...

GarryB wrote:Amazing.... but something the Soviets and Russians have been doing for quite some time with their unmanned cargo space craft docking on Mir and now the ISS...

Well except for Progress 59 last month, but 140 flights with three failures is an admirable record Garry.

Admirable to boast ?

Well except for Progress 59 last month, but 140 flights with three failures is an admirable record Garry.

Sounds like a perfectly acceptable failure rate to me.

GarryB wrote:

Well except for Progress 59 last month, but 140 flights with three failures is an admirable record Garry.

Sounds like a perfectly acceptable failure rate to me.

Its a good success rate and was meant as a complement. The Proton just crashed minutes ago.

The Proton just crashed minutes ago.

Meh.... rockets sometimes fail.

Those who have never failed have never tried anything challenging enough.

Why US Drone Program is " an Absolutely Total Faliure"


http://sputniknews.com/analysis/20150519/1022299741.html

Air Force moves to reduce stress on drone pilots

http://www.airforcetimes.com/story/military/2015/05/20/relief-for-drone-pilots/27648065/

US Admiral Frustrated Over Delay in Drone Fleet for Aircraft Carriers

Admiral Michael Manazir, the director of air warfare for the US Navy, stated on Wednesday that he is frustrated by the delay in a plan to build a fleet of drones on board aircraft carriers.

The Navy planned to begin soliciting bids for the project, called the Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike System (UCLASS), last year. The effort was delayed until 2016 due to questions over whether or not the drones would be stealthy enough to conduct both surveillance and strike missions.

Manazir stated that he is not sure when the Navy will begin to solicit bids on the project from outside companies.

“The UCLASS RfP has been ready to release now for over a year, we should have it on the street. We have lost this time to put that technology to work. That’s where my frustration is,” Manazir stated.

Boeing, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc., Lockheed Martin Corp., and Northrop Grumman have already received contracts valued at $15 million for preliminary design review.

“We’re doing a business case analysis right now about if you put more funding in the X-47B, whether you can get any more out of the original design,” he stated. “We continue to fund the other elements of this besides the air system itself, so we’re still able to advance the technology that will allow us to operate unmanned systems from our carriers and also from the carrier strike group.”

The event Manazir spoke at was organized by an advocacy group called the Navy League of the United States, based in Arlington, Virginia. The event was aimed at highlighting funding shortcomings with the fleet, despite having a base budget higher than any other branch.

“If you look at it in comparison to other services, the Navy is in good shape,” Manazir stated. “It’s more about how much money the Navy should be getting relative to the demands being placed on the service.”

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/military/20150605/1022967709.html#ixzz3cAx1L500

The Military Wants Swarm Bots It Can Retrieve in Midair

They'll bite through your aileron wires. They'll insert toasting forks in your tyres. That is the tale of the Gremlins. Technology / Research & Development

Imagine a pilot in an expensive fighter jet flying over contested airspace somewhere in the Pacific. A series of blips of appears on the radar: drones staging a coordinated assault. But they’re far out to sea for attack drones — too far, it seems, to make it back to any safe landing spot. How did they get out here?


Like a team of silver-suited circus performers, they encircle the jet in a precise and choreographed dance and begin a series of electromagnetic attacks, jamming the radar and the communications. The jet’s instruments begin to behave strangely. The pilot takes aim but there are too many of them. He’s been swarmed. As quickly as they appear, the drones are gone, vanished into the underbelly of a low-flying bomber that’s now climbing away. With his communications and targeting equipment fried, the pilot must return to base. He’s been effectively neutralized and the culprits are nowhere to be seen.

In what some might regard as a swipe at certain high-priced fighter jets, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, today announced a new program to develop distributed drones that can be recovered in the air via a C-130 transport plane, and then prepped for re-use 24 hours later. They’re calling them Gremlins.

“An ability to send large numbers of small unmanned air systems (UAS) with coordinated, distributed capabilities could provide U.S. forces with improved operational flexibility at much lower cost than is possible with today’s expensive, all-in-one platforms—especially if those unmanned systems could be retrieved for reuse while airborne,” DARPA program manager Dan Pratt said in a statement. “So far, however, the technology to project volleys of low-cost, reusable systems over great distances and retrieve them in mid-air has remained out of reach.”

Hear that expensive, all-in-one platforms? The Gremlins are coming for you.

The agency is looking for some sort of drone system that’s smarter than a missile but cheaper than a jet, good for about 20 uses. “We wouldn’t be discarding the entire airframe, engine, avionics and payload with every mission, as is done with missiles, but we also wouldn’t have to carry the maintainability and operational cost burdens of today’s reusable systems, which are meant to stay in service for decades,” Pratt said.

The term Gremlin refers to a mischievous, technologically-inclined goblin, taken to snipping wires on Royal Air Force, or RAF, planes. It came into popular usage in Britain during World War II, when RAF poets like Hubert Griffith turned the Gremlins into subjects of verse.

When you’re frozen blue like your Spitfire

And you’re scared a Mosquito pink,

When you’re thousands of miles from nowhere

And there’s nothing below but the drink

It’s then you will see the Gremlins.

Legendary author and 80 Squadron RAF pilot Roald Dahl is credited with bringing the concept to the United States, in the form of a children’s book, The Gremlins, published in 1943.

For DARPA, the project follows a series of related efforts in autonomous aerial refueling, and drone teaming.



http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2015/08/military-wants-swarm-bots-retrieve-midair/119795/?oref=DefenseOneFB

NATO Plans New Drone Spy Force in 2016 to Monitor Mediterranean

US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said that a new NATO drone surveillance force to monitor the alliance’s tumultuous southern flank region will be based in the Sigonella Air Base in Italy next year.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — A new NATO drone surveillance force to monitor the alliance’s tumultuous southern flank region will be based in the Sigonella Air Base in Italy next year, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said on Wednesday.

"[Carter said] Sigonella next summer will host the NATO Alliance Ground Surveillance system," the Department of Defense News reported.

On Wednesday, Carter was speaking to the media during a joint press conference in Rome with Italian Defense Minister Roberta Pinotti, following meetings with her and with Italian President Sergio Mattarella.

"The AGS [Alliance Ground Surveillance] consists of five Global Hawk remotely piloted aircraft and command-and-control base stations. NATO will operate and maintain the system on behalf of its 28 allies, five of whom acquired the system for the alliance," the report explained.

The Mediterranean region south of NATO member nations is being rocked by continued civil war in Libya and Syria, the growing threat of the Islamic State and other Islamist forces as well as an unprecedented refugee crisis.

The new drone system "will provide NATO with transformational intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets that will benefit all allies, including those here in the southern flank," Carter was quoted by the Department of Defense News as saying.

Carter’s visit to Italy came during Trident Juncture 2015, the largest NATO exercise in more than a decade, hosted by Italy, Spain and Portugal, the report noted.

The exercise began on October 3 and involves more than 36,000 personnel from 30 NATO and partner nations.

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/military/20151007/1028183052/NATO-to-spy-mediterranean-with-drones.html#ixzz3nyEjBiMx

How Drones Make War Too Easy: Perfect vehicle for delivering biological and chemical agents



US can talk openly about using bio and chemical weapons.

Northrop Grumman wins DARPA TERN programme

Small-deck ships such as destroyers and frigates could greatly increase their effectiveness if they had their own unmanned air systems (UASs) to provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and other capabilities at long range around the clock. Current state-of-the-art UASs, however, lack the ability to take off and land from confined spaces in rough seas and achieve efficient long-duration flight. Tern, a joint program between DARPA and the U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Research (ONR), seeks to provide these and other previously unattainable capabilities. As part of Tern’s ongoing progress toward that goal, DARPA has awarded Phase 3 of Tern to a team led by the Northrop Grumman Corporation.

The first two phases of Tern successfully focused on preliminary design and risk reduction. In Phase 3, DARPA plans to build a full-scale demonstrator system of a medium-altitude, long-endurance UAS designed to use forward-deployed small ships as mobile launch and recovery sites. Initial ground-based testing, if successful, would lead to an at-sea demonstration of takeoff, transition to and from horizontal flight, and landing—all from a test platform with a deck size similar to that of a destroyer or other small surface-combat vessel.

“The design we have in mind for the Tern demonstrator could greatly increase the effectiveness of any host ship by augmenting awareness, reach and connectivity,” said Dan Patt, DARPA program manager. “We continue to make progress toward our goal to develop breakthrough technologies that would enable persistent ISR and strike capabilities almost anywhere in the world at a fraction of current deployment costs, time and effort.”

“ONR’s and DARPA’s partnership on Tern continues to make rapid progress toward creating a new class of unmanned air system combining shipboard takeoff and landing capabilities, enhanced speed and endurance, and sophisticated supervised autonomy,” said Gil Graff, deputy program manager for Tern at ONR. “If successful, Tern could open up exciting future capabilities for Navy small-deck surface combatants and U.S. Marine Corps air expeditionary operations.”

“Through Tern, we seek to develop and demonstrate key capabilities for enabling distributed, disaggregated U.S. naval architectures in the future,” said Bradford Tousley, director of DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office (TTO), which oversees Tern. “This joint DARPA-Navy effort is yet another example of how the Agency collaborates with intended transition partners to create potentially revolutionary capabilities for national security.”

The Tern Phase 3 design envisions a tailsitting, flying-wing aircraft with twin counter-rotating, nose-mounted propellers. The propellers would lift the aircraft from a ship deck, orient it for horizontal flight and provide propulsion to complete a mission. They would then reorient the craft upon its return and lower it to the ship deck. The system would fit securely inside the ship when not in use.

Tern’s potentially groundbreaking capabilities have been on the Navy’s wish list in one form or another since World War II. The production of the first practical helicopters in 1942 helped the U.S. military realize the potential value of embedded vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft to protect fleets and reduce the reliance on aircraft carriers and land bases.

The Tern demonstrator will bear some resemblance to the Convair XFY-1 Pogo, an experimental ship-based VTOL fighter designed by the Navy in the 1950s to provide air support for fleets. Despite numerous successful demonstrations, the XFY-1 never advanced beyond the prototype stage, in part because the Navy at the time was focusing on faster jet aircraft and determined that pilots would have needed too much training to land on moving ships in rough seas.

“Moving to an unmanned platform, refocusing the mission and incorporating modern precision relative navigation and other technologies removes many of the challenges the XFY-1 and other prior efforts faced in developing aircraft based from small ships,” Patt said. “Tern is a great example of how new technologies and innovative thinking can bring long-sought capabilities within reach.”

DARPA and the Navy have a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) to share responsibility for the development and testing of the Tern demonstrator system. The Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory (MCWL) has also expressed interest in Tern’s potential capabilities and is providing support to the program.

max steel wrote:
Northrop Grumman wins DARPA TERN programme

Small-deck ships such as destroyers and frigates could greatly increase their effectiveness if they had their own unmanned air systems (UASs) to provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and other capabilities at long range around the clock. Current state-of-the-art UASs, however, lack the ability to take off and land from confined spaces in rough seas and achieve efficient long-duration flight. Tern, a joint program between DARPA and the U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Research (ONR), seeks to provide these and other previously unattainable capabilities. As part of Tern’s ongoing progress toward that goal, DARPA has awarded Phase 3 of Tern to a team led by the Northrop Grumman Corporation.

The first two phases of Tern successfully focused on preliminary design and risk reduction. In Phase 3, DARPA plans to build a full-scale demonstrator system of a medium-altitude, long-endurance UAS designed to use forward-deployed small ships as mobile launch and recovery sites. Initial ground-based testing, if successful, would lead to an at-sea demonstration of takeoff, transition to and from horizontal flight, and landing—all from a test platform with a deck size similar to that of a destroyer or other small surface-combat vessel.

“The design we have in mind for the Tern demonstrator could greatly increase the effectiveness of any host ship by augmenting awareness, reach and connectivity,” said Dan Patt, DARPA program manager. “We continue to make progress toward our goal to develop breakthrough technologies that would enable persistent ISR and strike capabilities almost anywhere in the world at a fraction of current deployment costs, time and effort.”

“ONR’s and DARPA’s partnership on Tern continues to make rapid progress toward creating a new class of unmanned air system combining shipboard takeoff and landing capabilities, enhanced speed and endurance, and sophisticated supervised autonomy,” said Gil Graff, deputy program manager for Tern at ONR. “If successful, Tern could open up exciting future capabilities for Navy small-deck surface combatants and U.S. Marine Corps air expeditionary operations.”

“Through Tern, we seek to develop and demonstrate key capabilities for enabling distributed, disaggregated U.S. naval architectures in the future,” said Bradford Tousley, director of DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office (TTO), which oversees Tern. “This joint DARPA-Navy effort is yet another example of how the Agency collaborates with intended transition partners to create potentially revolutionary capabilities for national security.”

The Tern Phase 3 design envisions a tailsitting, flying-wing aircraft with twin counter-rotating, nose-mounted propellers. The propellers would lift the aircraft from a ship deck, orient it for horizontal flight and provide propulsion to complete a mission. They would then reorient the craft upon its return and lower it to the ship deck. The system would fit securely inside the ship when not in use.

Tern’s potentially groundbreaking capabilities have been on the Navy’s wish list in one form or another since World War II. The production of the first practical helicopters in 1942 helped the U.S. military realize the potential value of embedded vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft to protect fleets and reduce the reliance on aircraft carriers and land bases.

The Tern demonstrator will bear some resemblance to the Convair XFY-1 Pogo, an experimental ship-based VTOL fighter designed by the Navy in the 1950s to provide air support for fleets. Despite numerous successful demonstrations, the XFY-1 never advanced beyond the prototype stage, in part because the Navy at the time was focusing on faster jet aircraft and determined that pilots would have needed too much training to land on moving ships in rough seas.

“Moving to an unmanned platform, refocusing the mission and incorporating modern precision relative navigation and other technologies removes many of the challenges the XFY-1 and other prior efforts faced in developing aircraft based from small ships,” Patt said. “Tern is a great example of how new technologies and innovative thinking can bring long-sought capabilities within reach.”

DARPA and the Navy have a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) to share responsibility for the development and testing of the Tern demonstrator system. The Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory (MCWL) has also expressed interest in Tern’s potential capabilities and is providing support to the program.

It didn't work very well the first time, I guess they want another attempt.

trying to go with the german technologies?

what's the point with vertical launching of UCAV's ? So that radars can't detect them ?

To be launched from decks of aircraft carries and vertical launch of UCAV's will not effect their detectability in anyway or form.