The UAV revolution is gaining steam and vertical lift. Unmanned helicopters may soon be resupplying troops in Afghanistan. ROTORCRAFT UAVS By Richard Whittle
Unmanned aerial vehicles of the fixed-wing variety have proven their worth to the military beyond doubt during the past
15 years or so, especially since U.S. troops
went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now,
with a lag time less dramatic but still reminiscent of the four-decade gap between
the dawn of powered flight and the debut
of the first useful helicopters, interest in
rotorcraft UAVs is clearly taking off.
“In a perfect world, I would have the
capability of a Reaper or a Predator but
not be tied to a runway,” said Maj. Thomas
Heffern, whose job at the U.S. Marine
Corps Combat Development Center is to
study how the Corps can best exploit the
explosion in UAV technology. Being “
runway independent,” Heffern noted, means
“vertical lift.”
The U.S. Air Force’s fixed-wing MQ-1
Predator and newer MQ- 9 Reaper, perhaps the most famous UAVs in the U.S.
military inventory, have become technological stars in the wars in Afghanistan and
Iraq. The Defense Department, especially
under Secretary Robert Gates, can’t seem
to get enough of them. Equipped with
reconnaissance gear and weapons, Predator and Reaper provide military commanders — and the CIA, reportedly — the
ability to search out and track insurgents
and terrorists around the clock and attack
them with missiles and bombs before they
know what’s about to hit them.
A UAV that could do all that but take
off and land anywhere, rather than relying
on runways, would be a hot item, Heffern
ventured. “Whoever can crack the code
on that, that’s going to be interesting to an
expeditionary, amphibious organization”
like the Marine Corps.
A Brief Background
Small observation helicopter UAVs, such as
Japanese firm Yamaha Motor Co.’s RMAX,
have been flying industrial missions for
years, and the Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency (DARPA) has been working just as long on advanced UAV rotorcraft concepts for the U.S. military. DARPA
has studied concepts as futuristic as an
unmanned rotorcraft gunship that could
fly as a “wingman” for manned U.S. Army
helicopters, whose pilots would control the
UAV by voice command.
Rotorcraft UAVs aren’t quite there yet,
and may not be for a while, but defense
contractors are increasingly busy working
on medium-sized helicopter UAVs that
can conduct intelligence, surveillance and
reconnaissance (ISR), carry air-to-ground
weapons, and perform a range of other
missions, from serving as communications
nodes to carrying cargo. In the not-so-distant future, vertical lift UAVs may even
perform combat search and rescue operations, some experts predict.
Vertical lift UAVs and concepts for them
come in all sizes, and the military is seriously
interested. The U.S. Navy, as the service that
leads Defense Department Joint Explosive
Ordinance Disposal programs, gave Honeywell a contract in 2008 for the company’s
Tarantula Hawk, a video camera-equipped
micro UAV that can fit into a backpack. The
T-Hawk, which looks more like an appliance than an aircraft, will be used by bomb
disposal teams to hover over and examine
suspected bombs before the teams set
about defusing them. Under the $65-million
contract, Honeywell will provide 180
T-Hawks, 90 ground control units, training,
spare parts and other support.
