Several UAV Items

[GZR_Sactargets]

From AF Daily Report 26 Jul 09

UAV as Sixth-Gen Fighter?: Lt. Gen. Dave Deptula, the Air Staff's head of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, said it is not unrealistic to imagine an unmanned aerial vehicle as successor to fifth-generation fighters—the F-22 and yet-to-field F-35—in our national military strategy, however he added that UAVs still require some technology maturation before they would be ready to assume that mantle. "It depends on your definition of fighter," Deptula said during the July 23 press briefing on the service's new unmanned aerial systems flight plan. (See The Persistence-Plus Cockpit) Terminology has a habit of fixing us in the past, he said. "That quite frankly has been some of our challenges with labeling fifth-generation fighters," Deptula explained. He added that fighters such as the F-22 bring a wide array of capabilities to a fight, from electronic attack to standoff strike and ISR sensors. Today's fifth-gen fighters are flying sensor platforms that will have the ability to penetrate denied airspace and extract information while also retaining traditional strike capabilities. "An F-22 or an F-35 … does not perform the same functions as a P-51 did," he said. UAV systems will certainly be used to deliver weapons on a target in the future, he said, but if the question becomes dealing with controlling airspace filled with enemy aircraft, technology is not yet at the point where an unmanned vehicle can achieve the level of spherical situational awareness, assimilation, and translation of information into action that a human being in a cockpit can. "At some day, we might be able to, but until then, we'll still have manned aircraft," he added. (For more from the July 23 UAS Flight Plan rollout briefing, read The Persistence-Plus Cockpit)

The Persistence-Plus Cockpit: At the official rollout of the Air Force's new Unmanned Aerial System Flight Plan 2009-2047, Thursday afternoon, the service's vice chief of staff, Gen. William Fraser, acknowledged that most focus on UAS operations is on the unmanned aerial vehicle itself, but he said, "While the operator may not be sitting in the cockpit, at the heart of these unmanned systems, and really at the core of all of our missions, are highly skilled airmen." (Read our initial coverage, which reports the shift to a future in which UAVs are dominant.) UAS task force commander, Col. Eric Mathewson, cast a slightly different light when he said that one of the strengths of UAVs is its "1-G cockpit," the ground control station in which he "can always have a fresh crew, which enables any sort of persistence." Gen. Dave Deptula, the Air Staff's intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance czar, called that persistence capability "first among equals." He said, "What UAS is bringing to the table is the ability to stay in position or maneuver over large areas for a long period of time, and that's where a person in an aircraft becomes a limitation." The Air Force flight plan, they say, is meant to institutionalize USAF's vision for developing and resourcing unmanned capabilities for the foreseeable future. Deptula noted: "We are today, with unmanned aerial systems, about where we were in the 1920s with manned aircraft. Lots of potential out there. And, we have to change the way that we think about using these systems across the entire spectrum of military operations." Mathewson said the document does not lay out specific solutions but rather "concepts and possibilities" that will be filled in as the service talks with industry, academia, the other services, and allies. Initiatives underway include the development of multi-aircraft control by a single pilot (currently undergoing testing at Creech AFB, Nev., according to Mathewson) and a "payload agnostic platform" or a modular platform that could accommodate different payloads to perform a range of missions, from ISR to mobility and strike. "We're thinking about multi-mission in the large sense," he said and added, "We think this is potentially where we are going to go." (Deptula briefing slides)(Mathewson briefing slides) (Air Force UAS flight plan) (Briefing transcript)

MQ-X To Be "Test Bed" for Modular UAV Fleet: The Air Force has ambitious plans to build a modular plug-and-play fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles, senior leaders said at the service's unmanned aerial systems flight plan rollout July 23 at the Pentagon, with the cornerstone being the MQ-X—the successor platform to today's MQ-1 Predators and MQ-9 Reapers. "We've already begun work, in fact, the initial capabilities document for the MQ-X has already been completed and now it's beginning its way through the process," said Col. Eric Mathewson, commander of USAF's UAS Task Force. He called the program a "test bed" for the concepts of modular unmanned fighters and intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance, electronic attack, mobility, and other mission aircraft. While too early in the development process to say definitively when the Air Force expects to see the new-style UAVs show up on the flightline, Mathewson said the analysis of alternatives is beginning soon and expects to have the document complete by late summer or fall of 2010. The service will examine a range of capabilities for the aircraft, he added, including low observable technology. "It is on the table," Mathewson said of stealth capability for the MQ-X. "In the analysis, they'll come to the conclusion based on the requirements that are laid out."