The UAV Revolution
pany would meet the beyond line-of-sight
requirement by attaching a satellite dish to a
static mast above the Hummingbird’s rotor.
Lavorando said the Hummingbird
could have an edge in the competition
because it was designed from the ground
up as a UAV. Boeing has been able to flight
test the Hummingbird in the high desert
near Victorville, Calif., under an authorization given to DARPA by the FAA. “All the
development done has been unmanned
and all the lessons learned from that have
been incorporated into the aircraft and
into the control system,” Lavorando said.
“Starting with a manned platform and trying to unman it is very difficult.”
The Hummingbird also would offer the
Marines more than just a way to get cargo
to remote FOBs, he added, though supply
delivery is all the Corps is officially seeking.
The aircraft has internal storage capacity
that could be used to carry other payloads,
such as sensors and communications gear,
Lavorando said, “So it could be conducting
a resupply mission, at the same time providing a communications relay capability
for the troops, and it could be conducting
ISR missions while it’s hauling cargo.”
Beyond that, the U.S. Special Operations Command has tested a Hummingbird carrying a foliage-penetrating radar
called FORESTER to detect ground troops
moving beneath jungle canopy, confirmed
Maj. Wesley Ticer, a spokesman for the
command. The radar works best when
used from a hovering platform, which
enables it to distinguish the speed difference between the hovering aircraft and the
troops as they move on foot.
Boeing’s Groenenboom said the company also has begun experimenting on
its own with arming the A160T by flying
it with three dummy Hellfire missiles
attached to one of two stub wings added to
the fuselage. “That is one of the visions our
customer has eventually” for helicopter
UAVs, Groenenboom said.
Fire Scout
With the Marine Corps still evaluating
the bids, Northrop Grumman declined to
release any details about how its Fire Scout
could meet the program’s requirements.
In an e-mailed response to questions
from Rotor & Wing, Mike Fuqua, business development manager for Fire Scout,
would say only that the aircraft can “carry
a significant amount of cargo” in “pods
that have been designed for this increased
requirement.” How much cargo the Fire
Scout could carry, he added, would depend
on time, speed and “environmentals.”
Fuqua also noted that, in addition to
being chosen by the Navy as a vertical lift
UAV for ISR missions at sea, Fire Scout was
the Army’s choice as a helicopter UAV to
perform ISR, targeting and communications
relay missions under that service’s Future
Combat Systems program. The Defense
Department ordered the Army to cancel
Future Combat Systems on June 24, but
Fuqua — commenting before that — said the
fact that Fire Scout had been “a mature program of record in two services” should make
it “the obvious choice” for the Marines.
A Version of the AH- 6
Another arm of Boeing, its Rotorcraft Systems unit in Mesa, Ariz., has been developing an unmanned version of the company’s
AH- 6 Little Bird helicopter, whose manned
and armed version is flown by the Army’s
elite 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. Boeing considered but decided against
entering the AH-6U, as the unmanned Little
Bird is designated, in the competition for the
Marine Corps cargo resupply contract.
“It was the company’s decision to bid
only one platform, and then the decision
was made that the platform to be bid was
the A160 T,” said Boeing Rotorcraft Systems
spokeswoman Carole Thompson.
Even so, Dino Cerchie, Unmanned Little Bird program manager for Boeing, said
it wasn’t inconceivable that the Marines
could decide later that the AH-6U would be
a good choice for cargo resupply missions.
“We’ve been working with the Marine
Corps Warfighting Laboratory, helping
them develop their CONOPS (concept
of operations) for precision delivery and
resupply,” Cerchie said. “They’ve already
seen us demonstrate this capability.”
Boeing has been developing the
unmanned Little Bird since 2003, and in
recent years has demonstrated various UAV
missions, such as communications relay
using a high bandwidth link with phased
array antennas. That gave the AH-6U the
ability to communicate with multiple aircraft
and ground units simultaneously, Cerchie
said. The unmanned Little Bird, which
weighs just under 2,000 pounds empty, has
carried cargo loads up to 870 pounds and
could carry as much as 2,000 pounds, he
added. The company also has studied arming the unmanned Little Bird with missiles,
rockets and even .50-caliber machine guns.
“In 2005–2006, since it was such a new concept, we had a pretty broadband approach to
demonstrating anything and everything to
everyone,” Cerchie explained.
Since then, under an Army contract,
Boeing has been using the unmanned Little
Bird in AH-64D Apache Block III tests as a
stand-in for the Sky Warrior, a new Army
version of the General Atomics Aeronautical
Systems fixed-wing Predator flown by the
Air Force. Boeing’s Apache Block III gunship
helicopter is being equipped to allow its crew
to control Sky Warrior and the UAV’s sensors and communications relay gear in flight.
Sky Warrior isn’t far enough along to be used
in tests of that capability, so Boeing has flown
the unmanned Little Bird as a “surrogate.”
“I think all current and future variants
of all manned (military) aircraft are going
to have some level of UAV interoperability,”
Cerchie said. “The Apache, being the cornerstone, is probably going to have a little
more than most.”
Other Contenders
American companies are not alone in moving to cash in on vertical lift UAVs. Schiebel
Group of Vienna, Austria flew its little
Camcopter S-100 unmanned helicopter at
Le Bourget this year — the first time a UAV
had flown in that storied venue, according
to a company news release. Other companies playing include Saab of Sweden and
Swiss UAV of Niederdorf, Switzerland,
which in May announced that they would
collaborate in developing and marketing
unmanned helicopters.
“VTOL UAVs are the future,” said
V TOL historian and vertical flight consultant Michael Hirschberg. “It’s not a matter
of ‘if,’ it’s a matter of ‘when.’”
