UAV, einde van de Sperwer, begin van de ScanEagle en wat erna ...

[Harald]

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&plckPostId=Blog:27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post:efb06d4d-c782-4e3c-970a-f2fbf07a3e37

Defensie koopt Scaneagle als tussenoplossing voor de UAV

Maar de reactie (van Locum) die onder het artikel (zie ook hieronder) is interessant. Volgens mij heeft Poleme ook als eens zo'n opmerking geplaatst over gebruik van UAV ten opzichte van vliegtuigen ala King Air MC-12

Locum wrote:
Added Value and a rollercoaster learning curve.
We bought 34 Sperwers for total EUR 81,68 million / ± USD 115 million = EUR 70.965 / USD 99.351 per flight hour for procurement costs only! The 8 or so Sperwers left Afghanistan in the beginning of 2009. So we rented AeroStar UAV's from 21 June '09 till 31 July '10. The on average 5 Aerostars made 392 sorties and 2.098 flight hours over Afgh.
The total lease price for the Aerostars was EUR 39 / USD 54.6 million. Excluding the construction of a concrete 20 x 700 meter runway built by flown in Dutch engineers and a Dutch MinDef detachement of 8 pax.

For USD 54.6 million they could have bought 3 MC-12W King Air's. The MC-12W does not need a concrete runway, a dirt strip is enough. It carries a much larger payload with far better performance and the same endurance as an Aerostar over Uruzgan (8 hrs).

2 Dutch Sperwers crashed as well as 2 Aerostars and 2 Aerostars had to make an emergency landing. In which 1 Aerostar was damaged substantially and had to be sent back to Israel for repair.
UAV's have a 10 times higher crash rate than manned aircraft. They have problems with bandwith.
UAV's need relatively more personnel than manned ISR aircraft. Manned ISR planes do not have problems in constricted airspace.

So if you are very tight on the money, like the Dutch armed forces.
It is better to look for a conventionally manned ISR solution. Or alternatively go for a small fleet of Optionally Piloted ISR Vehicles. OPV's are approx 25 - 30% cheaper in exploitation than UAV's.
7/4/2011 3:54 PM CDT