U(C)AV ontwikkelingen

[jurrien visser (JuVi op Twitter)]

Drohnen sind gefragt, Eurofighter wird Ladenhüter

Het Duitstalige artikel vindt je via de link.

http://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article108952822/Drohnen-sind-gefragt-Eurofighter-wird-Ladenhueter.html

[jurrien visser (JuVi op Twitter)]

Ik zie de Duitsers (en andere Europese landen) liever kiezen voor een Europese UCAV. Die nu o.a. door de Britten en Fransen wordt ontwikkeld. Technologische afhankelijkheid op dit vlak van de VS lijkt me niet zo verstandig.

Je hebt een punt als je tot 20?? wil wachten. Je kan ook nu beperkt van de plank kopen om daarna uit te breiden met een eigen product (als het de verwachtingen waar kan maken).

[Elzenga]

Ik zie de Duitsers (en andere Europese landen) liever kiezen voor een Europese UCAV. Die nu o.a. door de Britten en Fransen wordt ontwikkeld. Technologische afhankelijkheid op dit vlak van de VS lijkt me niet zo verstandig.

[jurrien visser (JuVi op Twitter)]

German air force calls on Berlin to buy missile-armed drones for future conflicts

The country's post-war pacifist movement opposes such acquisitions; Germany is currently operating three Israeli-made Heron 1 drones in Afghanistan for reconnaissance missions.

By DPA | Aug.30, 2012

The head of Germany's air force called Thursday for Berlin to buy controversial missile-armed Predator drones for future conflicts.

Germany lags behind such nations as the U.S. and Israel in adopting the new technology. The country's influential post-war pacifist movement has opposed any acquisition of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), fearing they might kill civilians.

Lieutenant-General Karl Muellner said strict rules of engagement would meet those objections.

"There is not a single case where we haven't stuck to the rules," he said.

Germany's armed-forces contingent in Afghanistan, which is set to withdraw by late 2014, is currently operating three Heron 1 drones leased from Israel, but they are only usable for reconnaissance missions and are not armed.

The U.S.-made Predator, introduce in 1995, is fitted with Hellfire air-to-ground missiles and has been used extensively by the U.S. in eastern Afghanistan and adjoining areas of Pakistan.

Muellner criticized ground deployments of German forces abroad, saying the cost was out of proportion to the returns, and praised air interventions, saying, "Given the option, it's to be preferred."

No immediate comment was available from the opposition Left Party, which opposes military expansion.

The Green Party referred to a July statement by its disarmament spokeswoman, Agnieszka Brugger, who called purchase of drones without a review of their legality and public debate "irresponsible."

"There's no reason for haste about this," said Rainer Arnold, a Social Democratic defense spokesman, calling for the issue to wait until after next year's general election.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/german-air-force-calls-on-berlin-to-buy-missile-armed-drones-for-future-conflicts-1.461816

[jurrien visser (JuVi op Twitter)]

It's Time for the Air Force to Stop Buying Reapers

(Source: Lexington Institute; issued August 23, 2012)
 
We can all agree that Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs) have proven themselves one of, if not the single most, useful capabilities the U.S. military has deployed in the last decade. From the hand-held Raven to the larger, rail-launched Scan Eagle up to the Predator (and its bigger and badder fraternal twin, the Reaper) and the high-altitude, long-endurance Global Hawk, UASs have transformed intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) at the tactical and operational levels of conflict.

Until their withdrawal last year from Iraq and to this day in Afghanistan, U.S. forces rarely left their bases without access to an overhead UAS video feed. Hellfire-armed Predators, operated by the CIA, have become the single most important tool for prosecuting the global campaign against violent extremists. All told, the Department of Defense has spent billions of dollars deploying thousands of UASs along with ground stations, controllers and supporting infrastructures.

The Pentagon intends to spend billions more on UASs in the near future. Some of this money will go to deploy advanced systems such as the Air Force's Block 40 Global Hawk and its cousin, the Navy's broad area maritime surveillance system (BAMS), as well as the Army's Shadow and Grey Eagle UASs. Additional resources will be devoted to development of new platforms such as the Navy's Integrator, a small tactical unmanned aircraft system (STUAS) and Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) system.

But the overwhelming bulk of the money being spent on UASs will go to buy additional Air Force Reapers. Since they were first introduced in 2002, the Air Force has purchased some 350-400 of these platforms. While procurement of the Predator ended in 2011, the Air Force has bought around 100 Reapers and plans to go on doing so as far as the eye can see.

According to DoD's 2013-2042 Aircraft Procurement Plan, the number of platforms in the large UAS category which includes both the Global Hawks and Reapers will grow from approximately 445 in FY 2013 to approximately 645 in FY 2022. Since the total planned procurement of Global Hawks is around 50, most of these will be Reapers. For FY 2013, more than half the total number of aircraft the Air Force plans to buy will be Reapers.

The size of the Predator/Reaper fleet is driven by the requirement to establish 65 reliable orbits. What's the basis of this requirement? It sprang fully formed from the head of former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates at the height of the Iraq conflict. There was no data to support that number. Nor am I aware of any data that demonstrates the value of increasing the number of orbits from the current level of around 50 to 65. With the U.S. already reducing its force levels in Afghanistan and planning a complete withdrawal by the end of 2014, the 65 orbit requirement makes no sense.

In fact, there are several additional reasons to question the utility of the 65 orbit goal. The Army is planning to acquire nearly 200 Grey Eagles, a Predator variant, to do much the same mission. It also conducted the first flight of its Long Endurance Multiple Intelligence Vehicle, a large airship that can stay airborne for days and maintain persistent surveillance of very large areas.

Also, advanced sensors, such as Gorgon Stare, will allow each Predator/Reaper to track multiple targets at the same time, reducing the overall demand for orbits. Finally, even as it was ramping up Predator orbits, DoD also was investing in a fleet of manned surveillance aircraft to provide additional ISR. The military is being crushed under the weight of ISR information that it has not the means to exploit today. What possible utility is there from the last 15 or so orbits?

It is time for DoD to revisit the 65 orbit goal and for the Air Force to call a halt to its frenzied acquisition of Reapers. The new Strategic Defense Guidance explicitly says that the military should no longer plan for large-scale, protracted stability operations, the kind of situations that would have called for filling the skies with Predator/Reaper orbits. Yes, the world is an uncertain place and we must be prepared to track terrorists, deal with humanitarian disasters and respond to crises anywhere in the world. But do these missions translate into a requirement for 65 Predator/Reaper orbits, particularly given all the other ISR investments DoD is supporting? The answer is no. It is entirely possible that half the current goal, 30 orbits, would be sufficient to cover all the other missions identified in the Strategic Defense Guidance.

The Air Force needs to halt the rush to 65 orbits, cut back its acquisition goals for the Reaper and take a deep breath. It is time to stop and consider what the Air Force wants in the next generation of UASs. All our strategy documents and intelligence assessments warn of a future in which our adversaries will acquire modern air defense systems. Neither the Predator nor the Reaper could survive in such an environment.

So, why is the Air Force locking itself into a UAS fleet that could not deal with the future threat?

The Air Force should put together a research and technology development plan that will lead to the next generation of UASs, ones that can survive in hostile air environments, operate safely in crowded air space and perform their mission even in the face of communications failures and electronic attack.

http://www.defense-aerospace.com/article-view/release/137862/should-usaf-stop-buying-reaper-uavs%3F.html

[Elzenga]

Report: Military Drones Only 'Slightly' Cheaper Than Piloted Jets
By John T. Bennett

August 21, 2012 RSS Feed Print 
A Predator B unmanned aircraft lands after a mission at the Naval Air Station in Corpus Christi, Texas.
Military drones are only slightly cheaper than manned warplanes, and data indicates the remotely piloted aircraft also are more prone to mishaps, a new report says.

The Pentagon has since the onset of the post-9/11 Iraq and Afghanistan wars substantially ramped up its use of drone aircraft. Recently, Obama administration officials have acknowledged a U.S. drone mission in Yemen, the newest major front in the struggle against al Qaeda.

The unmanned combat planes offer in-conflict advantages like the ability to loiter over or monitor a target for longer periods of time than a manned plane can. They also are cheaper to buy and operate, a fact often lauded by defense officials and industry executives.

[Photo Gallery: NASA's Curiosity Lands on Mars]

But a new report released this week by the American Security Project, or ASP, concludes that most military drones are only "generally slightly cheaper to both acquire and operate than conventional fighter jets."

Despite claims to the contrary, unmanned planes require a large crew: There is one remote pilot, another remote crew member to operate the valuable cameras mounted on many, and "because a drone is not operated individually, but as part ofa system consisting ofseveral aircraft, sensors, ground control, and satellite linkages, the number of personnel needed to operate a Predator Combat Air Patrol (CAP) is estimated to exceed 80 people," states the report. It refers to the Predator unmanned plane that has been used in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and allegedly in Yemen. The number of crew members needed to operate other drone fleets composed of four aircraft can approach 130, ASP concludes.

In a blow to drone proponents, the report concludes they have a "greater tendency toward mishaps" than piloted warplanes.

Citing Congressional Budget Office data, the think tank concludes the Predator drones' mishap rate is 7.6 incidents per 100,000 flight hours. That compares to 2.36 mishaps per 100,000 flight hours for the Air Force's venerable F-15 fighter.

John T. Bennett covers national security and foreign policy for U.S. News & World Report. You can contact him at jbennett@usnews.com or follow him on Twitter.
http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/dotmil

[Flyguy]

Misschien weet de beste man niet dat deze UAV's al oudere sperwer's vervangen.  

"Nederland behoort zo weer tot de grote jongens. Drones zijn gewilde hebbedingetjes in de wereld van het leger, omdat een op-afstand-bestuurbare-oorlog slachtoffers onder de eigen troepen voorkomt."

Het ideale middel voor een krijgsmacht onder budgets druk.

"Dat scheelt een hoop benzine en lawaai van helikopters die dat werk nu doen."

Het scheelt benzine, prima!
Hij geeft zelf aan dat het eerder met heli's gedaan werd, ze werden toch al in de gaten gehouden.


Ik vind het goed als we geen bewapende drones aanschaffen (wel meer onbewapende), maar dan moeten we wel een gevechtsvloot behouden die veel duurder is  

[jurrien visser (JuVi op Twitter)]

'Let u op? Nog even, en er zweven drones boven Amsterdam'

OPINIE - Lars Anderson − 13/08/12,

vk opinie In het nieuws vorige week: de eerste 'drone', door Nederland ingezet. Voordat we verdergaan met het inzetten van onbemande gevechts- en verkenningsvliegtuigen, is een stevige discussie nodig, schrijft columnist Lars Anderson. .

Net zoals een drone onder de radar kan vliegen, heeft de Nederlandse overheid buiten het zichtveld van het publiek vier drones aangeschaft. Afgelopen woensdag maakte het leger in de buurt van Somalië voor het eerst een vlucht met een eigen ScanEagle. Deze drone, die inclusief lanceerbasis 3.2 miljoen dollar kost, kan twintig uur zweven op een maximale hoogte van vijf kilometer. Ideaal om piraten in de Golf van Aden op te sporen.

Nederland behoort zo weer tot de grote jongens. Drones zijn gewilde hebbedingetjes in de wereld van het leger, omdat een op-afstand-bestuurbare-oorlog slachtoffers onder de eigen troepen voorkomt.

Amerika bijvoorbeeld oefent al meer dan tien jaar met 'Predators' en 'Reapers', die Hellfire-raketten met grote precisie tot op de schoenen van vijandelijke strijders kunnen schieten. Groot-Brittannië en Italië hebben bewapende drones, Duitsland wil ze hebben, en Rusland, Iran, India hebben allemaal vergevorderde projecten om drones van raketten te voorzien. Zelfs Hezbollah doet volgens geruchten dankzij Iran mee in de rat-race.

Zo ver is Nederland nog niet. De ScanEagle is 'slechts' een surveillancevliegtuig met een spanwijdte van drie meter. Te klein om een raket onder te hangen.

Big Brother 3.0
Toch moet de Nederlandse aanschaf van deze op het oog onschuldige drone met argusogen worden bekeken. Worden de drones nu nog gebruikt om piraten in roeibootjes op te sporen, binnenkort kunnen ze zomaar boven de Amsterdamse binnenstad cirkelen om met hun camera's bezoekers van grote evenementen in de gaten te houden. Big Brother 3.0. Dat scheelt een hoop benzine en lawaai van helikopters die dat werk nu doen. Overdreven? In Amerika worden drones al ingezet door verschillende politie-eenheden en cirkelen ze boven grenssteden met Mexico om de grenzen daar in de gaten te houden.

Verder is het door de komst van de eerste drone nog maar een kleine stap voor Nederland om uit te breiden en een bewapende variant te kopen. Nederland speelt graag een voortrekkersrol in internationale vredesmissies, en over niet al te lange tijd ben je daarbij wegens moordende competitie alleen nog een toevoeging als je ook bommen onder je materieel kunt hangen. Alleen: er is nog geen enkele maatschappelijke discussie geweest, ook niet in de Tweede Kamer, over of wij deze metalen bromvliegen wel in ons arsenaal willen hebben.

De Amerikanen, die in het diepste geheim een vloot van 7000 drones hebben gebouwd, beginnen langzaam te worstelen met dezelfde vraag. Begin juni lekte uit dat president Barack Obama een eigen 'kill list' heeft en hoogstpersoonlijk zijn veto geeft voor welke terrorist in Pakistan of Yemen met een raket wordt vermoord. Wie op die lijst staan weet verder niemand; het valt onder geheime operaties van de CIA. Er is met geen mogelijkheid een zinnige discussie over de morele afwegingen van deze moordmachines.

Schimmigheid troef
Schimmigheid is troef rondom de drone. Vraag het onafhankelijke reporters die vorige week een kijkje wilden nemen op een grote drone-conventie in Las Vegas. Wie een kritische noot durfde te kraken werd hardhandig afgevoerd. Voor de drone-fabrikanten staan er miljarden op het spel; hun industrie groeit als kool, met 'nieuwe landen' als Nederland als potentiële grote afnemers.

Militaire apparaten, beveiligingsbedrijven, politiediensten; iedereen lonkt naar de diensten van de drone. Hun opmars lijkt onstuitbaar, maar voordat we in Nederland het point-of-no-return zijn gepasseerd, moet er een breed maatschappelijk debat worden gevoerd of ze werkelijk zo wenselijk zijn. Geef openheid van zaken, ontdoe de drones van hun schimmigheid en kap met ultravage antwoorden, zoals majoor Chris Sievers, commandant van het Joint Istar Commando, aan de NOS gaf.

NOS: 'Dit is toch wat wij een drone noemen?'
Sievers: 'Nou, wij noemen het een UAV, een unmanned aerial vehikel.'
NOS: 'Maar is het te vergelijken met een drone zoals de Amerikanen hem in Pakistan gebruiken?'
Sievers: 'Niet helemaal. [...] Ons vliegtuig maakt integraal deel uit van een compleet systeem, dus het vliegtuig is onderdeel van een heel systeem dat wij inzetten om beelden genereren in ons operatiegebied waarin wij opereren.'

Hm. Jaja, interessant.

http://www.volkskrant.nl/vk/nl/9524/Lars-Anderson/article/detail/3300435/2012/08/13/Let-u-op-Nog-even-en-er-zweven-drones-boven-Amsterdam.dhtml

[jurrien visser (JuVi op Twitter)]

De ontwikkeling van drones lijkt me zo snel te gaan, dat je je serieus moet gaan afvragen of je nog wel miljarden wil steken in gevechtsvliegtuigen die pas over een kleine 10 jaar instromen en dan ruim 30 jaar mee moeten gaan.....

Misschien is een beperkt aantal air superiority fighters (2 sqn) aangevuld met diverse drone types wel een beter alternatief.

[KapiteinRob]

De ontwikkeling van drones lijkt me zo snel te gaan, dat je je serieus moet gaan afvragen of je nog wel miljarden wil steken in gevechtsvliegtuigen die pas over een kleine 10 jaar instromen en dan ruim 30 jaar mee moeten gaan.....

[jurrien visser (JuVi op Twitter)]

Drone swarms, the new aerial war system

By Paul Wallis
Aug 12, 2012

Sydney- Snoopy might have had more luck with the Red Baron if he'd been a ground controller. Despite the songs, in the comics he often had a few problems with von Richtofen. That may also be the case with fighter pilots and the new drone swarm technology.

The drone swarms are groups of unmanned planes and drones working together. The huge diversification of drones, robots and other unmanned aerial platforms is creating a very new tactical paradigm.

Boeing's drone swarms are opening up the field for a new type of aerial warfare and other aerial capabilities in many ways. Even ground control stations are becoming obsolete as new laptop-scale options come onstream.
Space War describes the latest tests of drone swarm systems:

Despite limited flight training, the operator was able to connect with autonomous UAVs, task them and obtain information without using a ground control station.

Boeing and JHU/APL (Johns Hopkins University and Applied Physics Laboratory) conducted two tests last year in which dissimilar unmanned platforms across air, land and sea domains collaborated to autonomously conduct searches and communicate information.
Not quite video game standard, but getting there in a hurry. Drones do have a lot of non-military uses as well. I'm focusing on the military in this article, but other uses include:

• Police work
• Firefighting
• Search and rescue
• Safety monitoring
• Disaster relief
• Supply drops (larger drones)
• Traffic control
• Customs
• Border patrols
• Surveillance
• Security
• Any role where being airborne is an advantage

Drone swarms in these roles can do a lot of valuable work, very efficiently and at low risk.
Combat economics- Cheap Kill goes mobile

The military side of drone swarms is fascinating, in the same sense Pearl Harbor was interesting.
The understated story here is that the drones are now clearly seen as working alternatives to many military systems formerly done by high cost systems. The huge costs of modern combat systems are killing military capabilities. The Eternal Free Lunch for Contractors of incredible costs for battlefield systems is pricing itself into a corner, particularly in aerospace technology. "Fly by wire" fighters like Raptor and Lightning II are very expensive, very complex, and training is equally costly.

The contractors themselves also have a long supply and R&D chain to manage. They also have, to find a nice word for it, an "icky" range of design issues and neuroses from those with inputs into design. Nobody really wins the dollar equations but freeloaders and position-players. Getting the shortest end of a long stick are the military operators and planners.

Then there's the shelf life issue. Fighters are generally considered to have a roughly 15-20 year working life. Over that time the cost of a lot of maintenance is also created. This cost base tends to escalate, often dramatically. Initial costs are those of new systems, and end cycle costs are those based on keeping old systems running while trying to replace them with new ones.
Modern fighters are designed to deliver air superiority. This is fundamental to any military operation on any scale. At their operational peak, they do that, very effectively. However, in their declining phase they can be serious liabilities, unable to deliver. They're very vulnerable, and not just to more modern planes, but to newer ground and sea anti-aircraft systems.

Cheap kill means a missile costing a few thousand bucks can knock out fighters which cost large numbers of millions of dollars, and pilots who cost a lot to train. Kill either the plane or the pilot, and you significantly reduce operational capabilities, as well as sending the enemy's money down the drain.
Cost, however, is a serious constraint. If you have a look at the flying museums operated by many of the world's air forces, you can see the problem clearly. Some air forces would have to completely re-equip, re-tool and retrain just to get on an equal footing with possible opponents.

Enter the swarms

This is where the swarms come into play. The new unmanned platforms are a lot cheaper. Their controls have been very much simplified from the early days. Their capabilities have expanded dramatically. They're not in the F22 or F35 league yet, but you can see where the demand for similar capabilities is likely to come from.
Most importantly they can take over many of the "laundry duty" jobs from the high value fighters. It doesn't make a lot of sense to send a very valuable plane to drop a couple of smart bombs when you can send a much cheaper drone, or in the case of swarms, drones, to do that. Multiple different drones, in fact, could deliver a lot more support, without wasting the valuable fighter or putting it at risk.

One of the reasons the US now uses cruise missiles as a default strike force is simply because it's better combat economics. One missile can take out a target which could be a high risk proposition for planes or a dilution of resources. Save time and keep your planes together, where they can enforce air superiority. Common sense, and good in practice.
Drones can also take some of the weight off the choppers. The logic is a bit different, but choppers are also very high value combat systems. They're the default backup for ground forces, and the demands on them are therefore high. Does a mission justify sending your choppers away from their core roles? If not, send drones. A swarm could do much the same job as a chopper, or more, with the right capabilities.

Drone swarms of the future

Anyone who remembers the old sci-fi cartoon stories of endless robot armies will appreciate the fact that drone swarms can even look like those old stories. The Boeing picture of five UAV drones in a swarm on Space Wars, all with their good fighter-like profiles, look just like that. The other side to the imagery is that they can be just that, too. Cheap kill, whether it's arrows at Agincourt or RPGs at ten paces, produces highly efficient and very effective cheap weapons. Many of these weapons, historically, have had multiple functions in combat. They could be adapted to different types of roles and different combat environments.

The likely devolution of military drone swarms will have to be based on production design. Why make multiple different models, if you can create one basic cheap platform and make it capable of doing multiple things?
Bearing in mind these drones will be in combat in new types of battlefield environments, "cheap" has to also translate into providing:

1. Combat numbers
2. Operational ranges
3. Multirole capabilities
4. Specialist roles
5. Systems mounting
6. ECM and ECCM capable
7. Signals systems capabilities
8. Weapons systems capabilities
9. Optical and instrument capabilities
10. Power to weight capacity
11. Hard points capacity
12. Survivability

These are just the basics. Specific mountings on drones will vary enormously, but you can already see the obvious equations between fighter, chopper and drone capabilities.

This might seem complex, but with efficient production, you could produce drones like iPhones, and in the same gigantic numbers. A good basic production design, properly costed, could make a combat drone as cheap as an infantry weapon. Drones aren't yet particularly hard targets to knock down by the standards of modern military forces, but if operating in numbers, they don't need to be. Knocking out 99 drones doesn't mean a thing if Drone #100 gets through and wipes out your installation or city.

There's another easily foreseeable issue- Stealthy, agile drones. Drones are extremely agile. They're not great radar targets when in ground clutter. A wooden drone, in fact, would be a terrible target to try to acquire. They'd be hell for conventional air defences.
A really big drone swarm, say a thousand or so, could be impossible to stop. Some drones would get through and with the right weapons they could do colossal damage. A saturation level attack would be cheaper than a few fighters, and guaranteed to work.

The answer, of course, is a counterstrike by large numbers of hunter/killer drones, designed to hunt other drones. A natural evolution, creating a predator drone species. You could, in fact, have a Battle of Britain drone air war happening almost automatically.
Drone swarms could also knock out expensive fighters, in theory. A standard air to air missile can be scaled down easily enough, or a Stinger-like system could be fitted. The cheap drones could become the default option for nations which can't afford the ultra-expensive fighters. For those with the fighters, sending them to fight drones isn't a great option, either. The fighters may not even be able to fire at them, let alone hit them. Drones could become the snipers of the air war, able to do enormous damage with minimal risk.

Any way you look at it, the arrival of cheap new controls and multiple-drone swarm capacity is the start of a rethink of air support and air strategy. If you're into aerospace, this will be a golden era of innovation and design discoveries.
It could also be a great time to move to another planet. Theoretically, a drone could deliver any kind of weapon, on target. Future warfare with drones could essentially revive the ability to deliver the world's nastiest weapons. I'd go as far as to say that this is a weapons system where the counters have to be in place before production so you can manage copycat counterattacks.

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/330631#ixzz23JpbgvEU

[jurrien visser (JuVi op Twitter)]

Russian Drones Lag U.S. Models by 20 Years

By David Axe

August 6, 2012

The Russian military will acquire long-range, presumably jet-powered strike drones to help replace its arsenal of decrepit Cold War-era Tupolev heavy bombers, according to Moscow's long-range aviation commander, Lt. Gen. Anatoly Zhikharev.

Just one problem: The new drones won't be ready for combat until 2040 at the earliest, Zhikharev told Russian news agency RIA Novosti. That's a full two decades after the U.S. plans to deploy its own jet-propelled, armed unmanned aerial vehicles.

Remember when U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney called Russia America's "number-one geopolitical foe?" Romney subsequently dialed back that rhetoric. But the two-decade gap between U.S. and Russian drone technology is still a useful reminder that Moscow does not pose a major military threat to any country that isn't its immediate neighbor.

Zhikharev's admission of the drone gap comes at a desperate time for the once-mighty Russian aerospace industry. Political pressure is building for the Kremlin to acquire modern weaponry on par with that of the U.S., European and the most advanced Asian militaries. This summer, newly reelected Russian president Vladimir Putin vowed to equip the air force with a new manned bomber, a new early-warning radar plane and several types of drones. "This is a most important area of development in aviation," Putin said of UAVs.

But while Russian industry has reliably churned out upgraded versions of Cold War jet fighters while also slowly developing the T-50, Moscow's first stealth fighter prototype, aerospace companies have struggled to design working UAVs. Drones demand lightweight materials and systems, but Russian flight hardware "tends to be overbuilt," according to U.S. trade publication Defense Industry Daily.

Lack of technological foresight is another problem. Putin's recent cheerleading for drones belies decades during which the Russian military willfully neglected robotic aircraft.

In 2007, Moscow's state-owned gas and oil producer Gazprom teamed up with aerospace firm Irkut to develop two models of camera-equipped medium drone for patrolling Gazprom's thousands of miles of pipelines. In size and endurance, Gazprom's civil UAVs were roughly equivalent to American and European military models, including the U.S. Predator. Even so, the Kremlin was "not overly impressed" and "largely ignored" the drones, U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Cindy Hurst wrote.

A year later Russia went to war with its neighbor Georgia, a country of only 4.5 million people that nevertheless had been able to equip its armed forces with Israeli-made Hermes drones, totally outclassing Russia's surveillance forces. After the war Russia spent $53 million on its own fleet of probably a dozen or so Israeli UAVs, including Searcher and I-View models.

These remain Moscow's only modern drones. Belated efforts to design indigenous flying robots have all fallen flat. In January 2010 a prototype of the Vega Company's Stork UAV crashed and burned on takeoff, as seen in the video above. The crash apparently ended that particular program.

In essence, Russia is starting from scratch on homemade robot warplanes, some 20 years after other advanced nations began getting serious about UAVs. Russian officials are promising a first flight for an indigenous, Predator-class drone in 2014, but in light of past failures the plan lacks credibility. It's not hard to see why a jet-powered drone bomber could require a full 30 years to develop, starting today.

The U.S. military, by contrast, already operates hundreds of medium drones, including armed Predators and Reapers — to say nothing of thousands of small drones and dozens of airliner-size Global Hawks.

Meanwhile, American firms have produced four different jet-propelled, drone bomber demonstrators in anticipation of a Navy contest to put armed UAVs on carrier decks by 2018. And the Air Force is planning to make its newest bomber, due to enter service in the 2020s, "optionally manned." That means it can switch from a piloted warplane to a drone with the flip of a few switches.

Against these robots, Russia's 2040 drone bomber could seem hopelessly late — if it enters service at all.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/08/russian-drones/

[jurrien visser (JuVi op Twitter)]

A Twist of the Wrist -- How to Drive an X-47B

Posted byGraham on Aug 06, 2012

Standing off to one side at last week's press unveiling of the US Navy's X-47B unmanned combat aircraft system demonstrator at NAS Patuxent River was a guy with what looked like a Borg cybernetic implant on his arm.

In fact, it was the wireless hand controller for maneuvering the X-47B on the aircraft-carrier deck.

The battery-powered device uses an RF data link to control nosewheel steering, engine thrust, mainwheel brakes and tailhook, and provides a display, keys and lights to communicate aircraft status to the operator maneuvering the unmanned X-47B on the flight deck.

Initial deck handling trials are planned for this week on the ramp at Pax using air vehicle 2. The operator will stand directly behind the "yellow shirt" flight-deck director, both of them looking at the aircraft, and follow the director's hand signals to maneuver the X-47B.

Using the hand controller, the deck operator will maneuver the X-47B on to the catapult, run up the engine to tension the cat, initiate a control "wipe out" to check the flight-control surfaces are clear and indicate the aircraft is ready to launch, then hand over control to the mission operator below decks.

On landing, once the aircraft has caught the wire, sensed the deceleration and reduced the engine to idle, the deck controller with take command of the X-47B from the mission operator, raise the hook and maneuver the aircraft off the wire and out of the way of the next to land.

AV-2 conducted the 35 min. first flight from Pax on July 29, beginning the East Coast work-up to the first unmanned-aircraft carrier operations in 2013. AV-1 is getting a new software load and will begin carrier-suitability testing with shore-based catapult launches and arrested landings at Pax late this fall.

Zie link voor de foto's

http://www.aviationweek.com/Blogs.aspx?plckBlogId=Blog:27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7&plckPostId=Blog%3A27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%3A3f3c892e-bc9a-47a8-99b9-1ecffdfd7acd

[jurrien visser (JuVi op Twitter)]

Elbit Systems to Supply A Latin American Customer with Hermes 900 and Hermes 450 UAS for Tens of Millions of Dollars

(Source: Elbit Systems Ltd; issued August 5, 2012)
 
HAIFA, Israel --- Elbit Systems Ltd., announced today that it was awarded a contract valued at many tens of millions of dollars, to supply a Latin American customer with a mixed fleet of Hermes 900 and Hermes 450 Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS). The contract will be performed over the next two years.

The contract includes Universal Ground Control Stations (UGCS) and a variety of payloads and capabilities including: the Electro-Optics Elop Division's advanced payloads systems, the Elisra Division's intelligence COMINT systems, SAR/MPR multimode radar and additional sensors.

-Elad Aharonson, Elbit Systems UAS Division General Manager commented: "We are proud of the customer's decision to acquire a combined array of Hermes 450 and Hermes 900, joining several other Hermes 900 customers, including the Israeli Defense Forces.".

Aharonson added: "Hermes 900 is well positioned as a world-leading UAS, suitable for a wide variety of missions, from intelligence gathering, to perimeter and security missions. The unique capability of joint operation with the Hermes 450 offers seamless integration for existing users, further enhancing operational flexibility and cost effectiveness and eliminating the need for additional infrastructure or special training programs".


Elbit Systems Ltd. is an international defense electronics company engaged in a wide range of programs throughout the world. The Company, which includes Elbit Systems and its subsidiaries, operates in the areas of aerospace, land and naval systems, command, control, communications, computers, intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance ("C4ISR"), unmanned aircraft systems ("UAS"), advanced electro-optics, electro-optic space systems, EW suites, airborne warning systems, ELINT systems, data links and military communications systems and radios.

http://www.defense-aerospace.com/article-view/release/137498/elbit-sells-hermes-uavs-to-latin-american-country.html

[jurrien visser (JuVi op Twitter)]

Duits leger denkt aan drones

4 juli 2012

Het Duitse leger overweegt de aanschaf van bewapende onbemande vliegtuigen. Defensieminister De Maizière (CDU) zegt in een interview in de krant Die Welt dat hij geen bezwaren heeft tegen de inzet van drones.

"Een drone is een vliegtuig zonder piloot. Vliegtuigen kunnen bewapend worden, dus waarom zou dat met onbemande vliegtuigen niet kunnen?", zegt hij in het stuk.

Gevoelig

De aanschaf van wapens is over het algemeen een gevoelig onderwerp in Duitsland, maar het parlement is in meerderheid voorzichtig positief over het idee. Alleen de meest linkse partij in de Bondsdag, Die Linke, is fel tegen het kopen van drones.

Oefenen

Het Duitse leger heeft in Afghanistan al kunnen oefenen met onbewapende drones die het van Israël had geleend. De onbemande vliegtuigen worden vooral door Amerikaanse en Israëlische firma's gemaakt. De Amerikanen gebruiken de laatste jaren veel drones in landen als Afghanistan en Pakistan.

Bron: NOS