France and UK deals
Philip Hammond and his french counterpart
Jean-Yves Le Drian announced in a Joint Statement on July 24 that, building on
the collaboration agreements of the 2010 Lancaster House agreement, the UK and
France will fund the
first phase of the Joint UCAV development and demonstration programme.
The Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle is
expected to become mature and ready for service by 2030, a very unanbitious
target considering that the US Navy will trial on an aircraft carrier at sea
the X47B next year, in 2014 will demonstrate its Air to Air refuelling capability
and between 2018 and 2020 it plans to put the drone in active service as a long
range, stealthy, long endurance strike and recce asset for the Carrier Air
Wings.
Europe is lagging behind by a great
margin.
The contract announced has a value of 13
million euro, and this money will be used by the BAE Systems / Dassault joint
venture to begin the joint UCAV work.
Separately, BAE and Dassault both plan to
stage the first flight of their existing UCAV-representative prototypes next
year: for BAE, this is the Taranis drone, while Dassault is the team leader
(50% share of work and costs) in the NEURON effort, a 405 million euro Europe-wide
project which includes Italy's Alenia (22%), Sweden's SAAB, Spain's EADS-CASA,
Greece's EAB and Switzerland's RUAG.
Taranis born from a 143 million pounds
effort first announced in the Defence Industrial Strategy 2005. Production of
the drone started in September 2007, and the Taranis was finally revealed at
Warton, on 12 July 2010. Ground testing followed, in particular to demonstrate
the all-sides stealthness of the prototype, and this phase was extended several
times, so that the first flight was delayed from an intended 2011 date first to
2012 and then to 2013.
Reportedly, at least, the MOD is pleased
by the excellent level of stealthness achieved.
The NEURON was launched by France in 2003
and the main contract with Dassault was signed in 2006. The French ministry of
defence target for NEURON was described as the validation of a UCAV design
which would lead to a production-ready aircraft with an unitary price
of 25 million euro.
The two demonstrators are actually quite
similar, sharing the same general architecture, stealth with two internal
weapon bays, and even using the same engine, the Rolls Royce Adour. The French
ministry of defence anticipated that a production-ready UCAV would need a much
more powerful engine, and expected it to be a development of the M88 engine
used by Rafale.
Now, with Dassault and BAE teaming up, the
future of NEURON becomes uncertain, and the plan of using the Rafale engine
becomes even more uncertain, as it is expected that, in the next few days,
Rolls Royce and Safran will announce their own joint venture for the
development of engine solutions specifically targeted at drones.
For sure, Dassault from the NEURON gains
significant experience and know-how, paid in no small part by other european
nations which now might find that the NEURON brings, effectively, to nothing
for them.
The UK on its part can build on the
Taranis experience and, to an unknown degree, it'll be able to access technology
and solutions developed for the X47B carrierborne UCAV of the US Navy, after
receiving clearance to follow the development with the Carrier Air
cooperation Memorandum of Understanding signed on January 5, 2012.
Another deal reached will see France acquire a
Watchkeeper drone system from the UK in 2013. The French Army will trial the
drone at least until mid-2013, and eventually adopt it for its own needs. The
Watchkeeper is built by Thales UK, and selling it to France would be a
significant export win.
In addition, it would open the door for
extensive cooperation between the british and french army units working with
the drone.
The most anticipated, expected and
important deal, though, is again missing.
A contract for starting the development of
the joint BAE/Dassault Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) drone, to be known
as Telemos, has not been announced, with developments in this direction once
more delayed and pushed to the right.
The Telemos aims for a 2020 in-service
date, and for the UK is targeted specifically at the Scavenger
requirement, a particularly important one. The constant delays (the RAF had hoped
for a 2018 ISD, this had to be abandoned and pushed to the right) are already
becoming an issue.
Worse, France is under a new government,
and is undergoing a defence review which will bring forth a new White Paper in
the coming months. As part of this effort, France is looking again into its own
MALE requirement, and for a few more weeks at least we won't know about the
impact that this review will have on Telemos.
As of now, the government suspended a
previous decision to acquire the Heron TP drone from the Israel Aerospace
Industries as an interim solution "France-ized" at great cost by
Dassault.
This decision, already contested by the
french senate, was the most expensive of all solutions, but was seen by Sarkozy
as a way to preserve national industrial capability thanks to the great
involvment of Dassault, which would heavily modify the israeli drone.
The Senate noted that purchesing 7 MQ-9
Reaper drones from the US would be a much less expensive interim solution, and
the new government is looking again at this and other possibilities: France's
Defense Ministry is reportedly in talks for an extension of the contract for
the Harfang MALE UAV system, due to expire in October 2013.
They might continue with the Harfang in
the near term and speed up the MALE program with the UK, if we are lucky, or
they might take more damaging decisions.
For example, France is keen on bringing
Germany into the cooperative effort, and perhaps even Italy. France's intest in
including Germany is mainly tied to EADS, the french-german-spanish defence
industry giant, which would otherwise be cut off, after the failure of its
internal Talarion MALE project.
The UK, after the negative experience of
the Typhoon enterprise, would very much prefer to keep the program binational
only, or at most multinational at industrial level but binational in management
and leadership.
The Telemos saga is already getting
complicated, before actual work even starts. It is a situation that needs to be
sorted out quickly.
Royal Navy drones
The Royal Navy is finally managing to launch the
expected Rotary Unmanned Aircraft development programme. On 24 July, the MOD notified industry
that a contract is due to be signed for the Capability Concept Demonstrator
(CCD) programme of the planned future Rotary-Wing Unmanned Air System
(RWUAS).
The bad news is that the CCD phase will
last until 2015 (!) and an In-Service Date is not expected before 2020.
The CCD is meant to inform the Navy on
"whether a multi-role RWUAS can provide utility in the mine
countermeasures, hydrography and meteorology, offensive surface warfare and
general situational awareness capability areas."
The CCD phase will involve physical
demonstrations of a vertical take-off and landing UASs and specialist sensors,
supported by simulation and synthetic environment experiments. The MAGIC ATOLS
system from Thales, which is used to let Watchkeeper land autonomously without
human input, might be involved as it offers a readily available ship solution
as well, capable to guide an helicopter drone on the deck of a ship at sea.
Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S)
wants an air vehicle, ground control station and communications link offering
"a low probability of delay due to unplanned maintenance or technical
issues". The CCD will also have to determine the impact of embarking and
using such a drone on ships, determining how it will be used, storaged,
supported.
Decisions about the drone system will
affect arrangements for the Type 26 and MHPC vessels, so the Royal Navy should
move and develop a clear plan for the future.
DE&S has been conducting some early
studies, and identified three main potential "classes" of drones that
could be used, from a tiny 100 kg solution to a 3000 kg one. To provide a
comparison of sort, a fully-loaded Gazelle light helicopter weights 1900
kg.
An helicopter drone is envisaged as part
of the Type 26 mission packages, and is also part of the MCM, Hydrographic and
Patrol Capability (MHPC) program for the replacement of the minesweepers and
survey vessels.
It has not been a mystery that the Navy
would eventually launch this contract award call. A VTUAS has been wanted for
some years now, and last year QinetiQ and Northrop Grumman had outlined their
proposal for the conversion of a Gazelle helicopter into a drone, using the US
MQ-8B Fire Scout software and operating system. They are likely to bid for the
CCD with this exact solution.
The Fire Scout itself might be offered,
too, along with other drones.
A small drone such as the Camcopter is
easily integrated on any ship, but its usefulness is severely limited for
obvious reasons. A larger drone, such as Gazelle, is likely to be far more
useful, but using it on Type 23 frigates in concert with even just a Wildcat
might prove impossible.
The Type 45 hangar, which can take two
Wildcat helicopters, could easily take a Wildcat and a naval drone and perhaps
even a Merlin HM2 plus drone combination.
The Type 26, hopefully, will offer ample
spaces for carrying Merlin HM2 and drone(s). It must be noted, indeed, that a
drone helicopter is not going to be a replacement for manned helicopters
capable to carry Marines, do SAR and medical evacuation and carry out ASW: all
roles that the drone won't be able to cover.
2 Lynx helicopters inside a Type 45 hangar |
While the US has been sending ships out
with sole-drone complements on rare occasions (recently, a frigate with 4 FireScouts), the US Navy ships are likely to pretty much always operate in company
with other vessels, while RN ships are alone most of the time. The drone must
expand the capabilities of the ship, not reduce them, so i do not think it can
replace the embarked helicopter, but only supplement it.
No news, for the moment, on the planned
demonstration of "a drone rail-launched from the back of a frigate",
which is also apparently planned for this year, according to what Air
Vice-Marshal Mark Green, Director Joint and Air Capability told the
defence committee back in June.
The drone, not identified (might be Scan
Eagle, even though this drone was already validated for launch and recovery from a Royal Navy Type 23 frigate between 2005 and 2006) would "fly for 14 hours" and then return to the ship.
Scan Eagle on its launch rail on a Type 23 frigate in 2005. Back then, the Navy was unable to finalize an acquisition, and the successful trials did not lead to an acquisition. |
Connected to the MHPC is also the recently
announced deal for collaboration
between Thales UK and Autonomous Surface Vehicles Ltd (ASV Ltd) to develop a
re-configurable Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV) to meet the challenges of future
off-board Mine Countermeasures (MCM) operations.
The vessel has been jointly designed to meet a
number of key requirements and drivers:
- Deployable from military platforms, craft of opportunity and from shore/harbour
- Air transportable
- Payload flexibility for all MCM systems – unmanned underwater vehicles, towed sonar, disposal systems, minesweeping
- Stable platform with excellent slow speed and towing capabilities
- Highly reliable & cost effective
The low signature USV, which is 11.5m in length
and 3.6m in beam, will have a maximum speed of around 25 knots. The vehicle is
now under construction and will be undergoing acceptance trials later this
year. A series of payload trials will be conducted from early 2013 onwards,
drawing on experience gained in previous off-board system programmes.
They are certainly going to offer this new
system to the Royal Navy for MHPC: while the Navy has been using the Atlas FAST
in these roles, trialing it since 2009, there is still good chances for Thales
to win the actual contract.
FAST was originally born in 2007 as a
2-year, 4.3 million pounds demonstration programme aimed at a 150 million
pounds requirement for an unmanned platform capable to tow Combined Influence
Sweeping kit, following the retirement of such equipment from the Hunt
minesweeper fleet in 2005. It was anticipated that 4 Hunt vessels would be modified to carry and put in the water 2
FAST drones each.
The FAST was successfully designed,
trialed and validated, but to this day the adoption on the Hunt vessels has not
gone ahead. Instead, FAST is being used as a demonstrator for unmanned, remote
MCM operations.
In 2011, Atlas demonstrated
the use of FAST as an unmanned mothership for the deployment of smaller drones,
namely the SeaFox mine disposal system.
These remotely-operated assets are crucial
for the future of MHPC, as the 3000 tons ship envisaged is to be built of steel
and it is to stay well far away from minefields, clearing routes from stand-off
distance using surface, air and subsurface drones.
The FAST, or the new Thales drone, or yet
another system, is the surface element: it is meant to tow combined influence
sweeping equipment or sonars, and it is intended to deploy directly into the
minefield other drones, such as the REMUS underwater search drones or the
SeaFox disposal system.
For this role, the unmanned surface vessel
must be kitted with suitable radio links, and with an underwater communication
system: signals coming from the mothership are relayed by the unmanned surface
boat to the underwater drones.
As I said, FAST did not originally born
with all these roles in mind, but adapted over time. The Thales realization,
larger and more powerful, will be specifically configured from the start for
the wide range of applications envisaged.
In future, drones such as this might also
be used for Anti Submarine Warfare (ASW) by towing active sonars in swarms
sailing ahead and around of the frigate/mothership, which would keep its sonar
in Passive mode, receiving the sonar echoes from multiple directions and so
managing to put together a much more accurate picture of the underwater
situation, locating submarines much more easily, even if they are particularly
silent and hard to detect.
Putting the active sonar away from the
frigate is necessary, since the submarine in the depths will immediately locate
the source of an active sonar signal, and might attack it if possible. That’s
why frigates will almost always use the passive sonar mode (undetectable) and
listen for catching the noise made by the submarine moving.
Like bistatic radars have better chances
to detect stealth airplanes, a swarm of sonars transmitting active signals from
different directions are going to massively increase the chances of successful
detection.
From Afghanistan to the future
The US Marines are delighted by the
performance of the K-MAX unmanned
load carrying helicopter in Afghanistan. This 2300 kg empty weight helo,
converted in unmanned configuration, is used to hail under slung loads of
supplies (4000 pounds at 15.000 feet altitude, 6000 lbs at sea level) and carry
them to Forward Bases, flying back and forth several times each night (for safety
reasons, in Afghanistan the K-MAX is only flown at night) and reducing the need
for road transfers which put personnel at IED and ambush risk. It also removes
some tasks from the long list of missions assigned to manned utility helos,
that can so be used for other roles, such as carrying soldiers around the
battlefield.
The USMC deployed the "Unmanned
Aerial Vehicle Squadron (VMU) 1 Cargo Detachment" with two K-MAX to
Afghanistan in December 2011. It was an experimental deployment under a 43
million dollars contract, but the success was immediate. By early May 2012, the
two drones had already moved over a million pounds of cargo, and their
deployment was extended out to September 2012. Now it is flown by
VMU 2.
During the VMU 1 five months deployment,
the two KMAX systems flew 485 combat mission flights, for a total of 525 flight
hours. As DefenseUpdate
reports:
Most missions lasted about 1 hour and
included a 20-minute turnaround time during which a pilot climbed into the
helicopter to shut it down, refuel it, hook up the cargo and then start it back
up. “That was a pretty short turnaround time, and allowed us to conduct six
sorties per night. We could have done more,” Joiner [Cargo UAS mission
commander] noted. By the end of the deployment — and after receiving permission
to hover — turnaround times with cargo hook-ups took 6 or 7 minutes to
complete. Overall, the KMAX was very responsive, especially when compared to a
convoy, a C-130 [Hercules] or an H-53 mission.
According to Joiner, “Towing the KMAX out
of the hangar to wheels-up, could take as little as 15 minutes.”
“Since it was an unmanned system, we were
able to conduct flights during inclement weather when other helicopters
couldn’t fly,” O’Connor [Major in the VMU 1 unit] said. “We flew during the
night, in the rain, dust and some wind.” The KMAX handled up to 4,500 pounds of
cargo per mission, he said. “The reliability of the KMAX was impressive, It was
fully mission capable 90 percent of the time.” O’Connor said. Inclement weather
accounted for 5 percent of the downtime and maintenance and scheduling issues
accounted for the other 5 percent, he said. The KMAX required less than two
hours of maintenance per flight hour, which equates to a low cost, O’Connor added.
Kmax is an unmanned adaptation of an existing manned helicopter. |
The US Army is looking ahead to field its
own cargo carrying drone helicopters, and it anticipates putting a squadron of
such systems in the Sustainment Brigades and/or in the Support Battalion of the
Brigade Combat Teams.
The USMC and USN, in the meanwhile, are
looking ahead, beyond K-MAX, towards a common and multi-mission system.
Using the same airframe, with the same
training, logistic and support tail, and giving it a series of modular payloads
enabling it to tackle different kinds of mission is the most effective way to
go, they recognize. Such modular payloads could include a EO/IR camera payload
that would be added for an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR)
mission; the hook and long line added for cargo pick-up; fuel pods for
long-range missions and even missiles and/or rockets for strike missions.
It is an unassailable concept, and my hope
and dream is for the Royal Navy and British Army to join forces to work
together on the Rotary-Wing Unmanned Air System (RWUAS), to follow the same
concept.
A 2000 / 3000 kg drone, of sizes and
design suitable for embarkation in ship's hangars, capable to carry a
significant payload under slung, and/or sensors and weaponry would cover a lot
of roles and be of immense usefulness in all sorts of situations and scenarios.
Such Army/Navy collaboration would be
further eased by the arrangements already in place for the joint running of the
Wildcat fleet, including use of the same Main Operating Base, Yeonvilton, where
the RN Squadrons and the Army Air Corps’ 1st Regiment will be based.
In an age of restricted financial
possibilities, this kind of cooperation is more important than ever, and where
there is so clear potential for collaboration, the chance should not be missed.
Hey Gabriele, I've been following your blog for some time now and I think it's amazing and admire your passion for our armed forces. Just a quick question, have you ever heard of Lockheed Martin's VARIOUS VTOL UCAV. If so, do you think it's viable for our carriers alongside the Lightning 2 in the future.
ReplyDeleteBest regards
Dan
Thank you, i'm glad you follow this blog and find it interesting.
DeleteRegardind the Various, yes, it has been a LM concept for a few years now, but unfortunately i don't think it has ever progressed past the concept stage. It exists on paper and in a few promotional videos and images.
Also, its payload was intended to be a mere 1900 pounds, with just 450 available for weapons, in a small bay.
That is to say a couple of Hellfire or Brimstone missiles.
It would be in theory viable, of course, but first you'd have to throw lots of money at it, build it, validate it, make it work.
And it wouldn't add that much to the air wing. UCAVs in development are meant to carry a couple of 500 lbs guided bombs, normally, and aim to carry more.
As it is, even as a concept, Various is not really a UCAV, but a stealth, VTOL weaponized UAV carrying less payload than a first generation Predator.
I don't think it's what is needed.
Many thanks for the reply Gabriele. Yes when I was looking at the drone and it's specs I thought it was a bit downgraded form the likes of the predator. I just thought maybe that the concept of a stealth, VTOL UCAV would be useful for considering the future of what aircraft will/could be used on the QE carriers as we know that we will not be getting any "cats and traps" for them.
DeleteHaving said that the money required and the will to do such a thing would probably be to much for the MOD to take on.
Regards
Dan