Wednesday, June 22, 2011

The Navy picked the wrong V/STOL UAV.


Yesterday I ran a post on the FireScout UAV that got downed in Libya.  In response to that post BB1984 made this statement to my question ... are rotary winged UAVs an evolutionary dead end?
To get back to your original questions:

Ref 1: Sure rotary wing UAVs are more vulnerable. The trade off is a lot of neat things come along with VTOL. Helicopters are more vulnerable than jets, it doesn't mean you replace all your helicopters with fast movers.

Ref 3: Given the choice of operating fixed wing vs. rotary wing for maritime patrol and ASW, everyone picks fixed wing. This line of thinking is why I think the Osprey is criminally under-used in future navy planning, but I digress . . On anything smaller than a through deck cruiser, fixed wing isn't really an option so VTOL vehicles have a place for everything smaller. Also VTOL drones (usually but not always rotary wing) allow aviation capability on even smaller ships than helicopters both because of physical size and because losing one is not as big a deal as it is with a manned helo. The reasons there is a future for maritime VTOL UAVs are the same as the reason there is a future for maritime helicopters.

Ref 4: It's not a one to one comparison. Firescout is about 1/7th the size of a Navy Helo by weight. Having several drones instead of one helo lets you cover more water and gives resilience against mechanical failure and combat losses. this combines with the unmanned nature of the beast to let commanders use drones much more aggressively. If you look at how much capability you can get out of a fixed amount of deck space, support crew, and fuel, smaller UABs will look better in many applications by weight of numbers, not individual platform capability.

The theory is moot however. The LCS is a disaster and the targeting capabilities that UAVs bring are only significant to a Navy that arms surface ships to kill other surface ships and attack shore targets, things the US Navy has no requirement for nor interest in
After reading that I reconsidered and arrived at this conclusion.

Rotary winged UAVs do have a place.

The Navy just picked the wrong one to develop.  They should have picked the Eagle Eye.  Specs from Wikipedia.

Specifications

General characteristics
  • Crew: 0
  • Length: 18 ft 3 in (5.56 m)
  • Wingspan: 24 ft 2 in (7.37 m)
  • Main rotor diameter: 2× 10 ft 0 in (3.05 m)
  • Height: 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m)
  • Main rotor area: 157 ft² (14.6 m²)
  • Powerplant: 1 × Pratt & Whitney Canada PW207D turboshaft, 641 hp (478 kW) each
Performance
  • Maximum speed: 225 mph (360 km/h)
  • Endurance: 6 hours
  • Service ceiling: 20,000 ft (6,096 m)
Armament
  • 200 lb (91 kg) payload
.
First thing that stands out in my mind is the lack of weapons carriage and the relatively short endurance.
The revolution in munitions toward smaller more effective weapons makes weapons carriage moot and proper engineering can solve the endurance problem.  

The Navy played it safe when it came to equipping its surface ships with UAVs.  Because it did, it missed the opportunity to team with the US Coast Guard on the development of this revolutionary machine.  Instead of being bold, they entered the field of UAVs in a half hearted way and we're seeing half hearted results.

Its not too late.

Fly Eagle Eye!


5 comments :

  1. well firescout is only 8 hours of endurance, so eagle eye comes real close, it only has 1/3 of fire scout payload but i am wondering if maybe some tweaks to the engines could help? also since this can short take off instead of just vertically take off instead of the fire scout, does that allow it to carry some extra payload? just random questions but the eagle eye looks far more flexible mission wise than firescout.

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  2. heck man i can't answer any of those quesitons. to be honest i don't even know if bell is still working on it. its not on their website anymore and the coast guard has OLD info on the deep water initiative.

    so i don't know if this is a blast from the past and a what if or a real airplane in development.

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  3. well i went to wikipedia and all work seems to have stopped since 2004. most of the work seems to have stopped in 2002, so since this thing is 10 years old, wondering what its stats would be if reconfigured now with the technology advances, its sad to see this concept canceled by USCG. since 2002 was when V22 was in the height of the controversy maybe people were skeptical of VSTOL tech so ran away from it. sad if that happened.

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  4. How about the Gyrodyne QH-50 DASH? upgun it with modern computers, datalinks and electronics, could carry 2 ASW torpedoes. see http://www.gyrodynehelicopters.com/dash_history.htm

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  5. The QH-50 DASH is still in use as a target drone IIRC. An weapon system so far ahead of its time.

    I wonder if a catapult launcher for the Eagle Eye would solve some payload issues. Know that big empty space on the bow of the FFG-7s? A little catapult launcher would fit nicely there.

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