As any military planner hoping to introduce new capabilities knows, breaking the cost paradigm in these days of tight budgets is every bit as important as proving the technology itself.
Centaur was conceived for scientific missions, but as the possibilities for optionally piloted aircraft (OPA) technology become more apparent, “we are actively thinking of what the next steps are,” says John Langford, president of Aurora Flight Sciences. In addition to enabling new types of missions that combine unmanned persistence with certified platforms, optional piloting could act as a bridge to the future by helping build trust in flying autonomous aircraft in the national airspace system (NAS).
Insitu has begun flight tests of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps' RQ-21A small tactical unmanned aircraft (Stuas). Developed from the company's Integrator commercial unmanned aircraft system, the RQ-21A made the 1-hr flight late last month from an Insitu facility in Boardman, Ore. With six months left to run in its 27-month engineering and manufacturing development contract, the program is on track, says Boeing subsidiary Insitu. Development and operational testing are scheduled to begin this month at NAS China Lake, Calif.
Avideo of a small unmanned helicopter dropping from hover like a stone, its operator unaware control has been hijacked, threatens plans to open civil airspace to UAS (unmanned aerial systems) by exposing the vulnerability of GPS to counterfeit signals, or spoofing. Although the weaknesses of civil GPS have implications beyond aviation—threatening the energy, financial and telecommunications sectors—they have come into sharp focus since Congress directed the FAA to open national airspace to UAS by 2015 (see p. 52).
In February, when Congress directed the FAA to open national airspace to civil unmanned aerial systems (UAS) by the end of 2015, it unleashed a flurry of regulatory and industry activity—and unlocked a closet of public and political concerns over how these systems could be used domestically.
After months of sharpening their bids and building teams, a U.S.-wide competition for the FAA to designate six sites to test UAS (unmanned aerial system) technologies in civilian airspace is about to begin. Across the country, governors, lawmakers, business development organizations, airports and companies are sharpening bid proposals that the FAA expects to issue “soon,” with an eye toward choosing the winning teams by year-end. Recent legislation requires the FAA to integrate UAS into the civilian airspace by Sept. 30, 2015.
Key portions of the U.S. Navy's most sophisticated electronic attack weapon are emerging from the laboratories. At least two candidate elements—a reduced-signature pod and an advanced power generating system from Northrop Grumman—are flying. The $2 billion Next Generation Jammer (NGJ) program—that would allow combat aircraft to penetrate sophisticated air defenses—is expected to be awarded to a single contractor almost exactly a year from now.
Frustrated by years of false starts, high-speed-propulsion researchers no longer find humor in the old joke that hypersonics is the future and always will be. Yet, just as shrinking budgets and moribund projects threaten the U.S. hypersonics community with that familiar feeling of deja vu, a newly announced Air Force high-speed-strike weapon offers an unexpected beacon of hope.
JSF HONCHO: The Joint Strike Fighter program will get a new leader. U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Christopher C. Bogdan has been nominated for a third star and will be assigned as director of the Joint Strike Fighter program office, replacing Vice Adm. David Venlet, who has headed the program since 2010. Bogdan, previously in charge of the KC-46A project, stepped into the deputy leader position on JSF in July. He replaced Maj. Gen. John Thompson, who had been with JSF for less than a year, in an unusual job swap announced in May, with Thompson taking over the tanker effort.
NEW DELHI — India hopes to develop the next version of its joint hypersonic cruise missile project with Russia, the BrahMos II, in the next five years. “Having developed the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile at Mach 2.8, it is logical that we proceed to hypersonic missile with speed of more than Mach 5,” says A. Sivathanu Pillai, missile scientist and chief executive officer at BrahMos Aerospace. “With storable fuel, it is possible to achieve up to Mach 8,” he tells Aviation Week.
The U.S. Navy has established a new program office to manage the planning and procurement of the proposed next-generation aircraft carrier CVN-79 John F. Kennedy, a Gerald R. Ford-class ship. The new program office will also handle the planning and procurement for other future carriers of the Ford-class. Those ships will “move into modified repeat production of CVN-79 and -80 through the new program office,” the Navy says.
NAS PATUXENT RIVER, Md. — Testing of the Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton will relocate to the U.S. Navy’s NAS Patuxent River, Md., test center after the unmanned aircraft completes envelope-expansion flights from Palmdale, Calif. The first Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) derivative of the RQ-4B Global Hawk is being prepared for flight at Palmdale and is planned to relocate to Pax River early next year, after “eight or nine flights,” says Capt. James Hoke, program manager for persistent maritime unmanned aircraft systems.
A classified National Reconnaissance Office mission due for launch from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., just after midnight Aug. 2 has been scrubbed until at least Aug. 4 because of a downrange calibration issue. NROL-36 is to be lifted into orbit by a United Launch Alliance Atlas V flying in its simplest configuration, with a 4-meter payload fairing, a single-motor Centaur upper stage and no boosters. That suggests a relatively small payload. Launch officials said there are no issues with either the rocket or the payload.
GENOA — Finmeccanica’s first-half results confirm that the company is recovering financially, but its growing debt is becoming an issue for management. Giuseppe Orsi, chairman and CEO, says Finmeccanica will dispose of assets worth €1 billion ($1.2 billion) before the close of the year, which should allow the company to reduce its debt. At the end of June that debt stood at €4.6 billion, an 11% increase over the same period of 2011. And the Italian economic crisis casts further doubt on the company’s debt situation.
WEBSTER FIELD, Md. — The U.S. Navy plans to award Northrop Grumman a contract in August to integrate the Telephonics RDR-1700 maritime surveillance radar onto the MQ-8B Fire Scout unmanned helicopter to meet an urgent operational requirement.
The Obama administration more clearly told federal contractors on Aug. 1 not to issue their employees notices of potential job losses that would take place if steep across-the-board budget cuts are instituted early next year.
WEBSTER FIELD, Md. — The U.S. Marine Corps wants to extend the deployment of two Lockheed Martin/Kaman K-Max unmanned cargo helicopters in Afghanistan through the second quarter of 2013, based on the success of operations so far. Already extended twice, the military utility assessment begun in December 2011 currently is scheduled to continue through September of this year. “The Marine Corps has indicated a requirement to extend the capability,” says Eric Pratson, cargo UAS team lead at Naval Air Systems Command (Navair).
With a recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report questioning U.S. Navy shipbuilding cost and operational assumptions, the service is defending its plan and estimates. The Navy projects that buying the new ships in the 2013 plan will cost a total of $505 billion over 30 years, or an average of $16.8 billion per year, CBO notes. CBO estimates that the cost for new-ship construction under the 2013 plan will total $599 billion through 2042, or an average of $20 billion per year
Despite the very public alarm bells rung recently over the breathing problems affecting F-22 Raptor pilots, Japanese officials have shown no concern about basing the jet fighters in their country, U.S. Air Force officials say. This is in stark contrast to the consternation displayed by Japanese officials because of recent flight accidents involving the V-22 Osprey as the U.S. Marine Corps deploys the tiltrotors to the region.
