Mother Ship

Sea Power, Jul 2005 by Burgess, Richard R

"One operator to four vehicles was the goal," said Rod Lekey Boeing's director of business development for J-UCAS. "The final decision of the actual ratio has not been made yet. We're still working through what the right number of vehicles is."

Through simulation, J-UCAS officials have demonstrated the ability to control four, and possibly six, UAVs with one operator, Francis said. For missions such as suppression of air defenses, "the number of platforms that may have to deal with that could be well into double digits. The question now becomes what is the right number of tasks for crew members."

However, Winns said, "The primary focus for developing naval UAV capabilities is centered around providing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities. Our whole strategy is focused on ISR. The Navy has been very consistent with the capabilities desired [in UAVs]."

Penetrating ISR - operating a surveillance aircraft in hostile airspace - is the Navy's vision for J-UCAS, but right now the service is focused on how to get the unmanned aircraft to the fight.

"Carrier suitability is the Navy's primary objective for the J-UCAS program," Winns told Seapower. "Can these vehicles take off and land on an aircraft carrier? We've never done that before with a vehicle shaped quite like these. It's going to be a challenge, but we think that with the technology, with the full push by industry, we are going to be successful."

Carrier suitability poses two major challenges for UAVs: landing and taxiing on deck. The landing system, Northrop Grumman's Joint Precision Aircraft Landing System QPALS), has been successfully demonstrated with an F/A-18 Hornet strike fighter.

"Around the aircraft carrier, JPALS is designed to allow a single controller to control multiple aircraft coming into and around the carrier," said Rick Ludwig, Northrop Grumman's J-UCAS program director.

For taxiing, Boeing "has built a small vehicle that is used to experiment with different control methods including hand controllers via infrared or via direct connection to the vehicle," said Alderson. "Northrop Grumman is going to put a UCAV on deck and maneuver it around."

"Where it's really going to be a problem is where we have to be able to make a sortie generation count [the number of aircraft flights that a carrier can handle in a defined period] that the carrier is used to, so that when it gets on deck it's going to have to be maneuvered out on its own and be maneuvered to the catapult on its own," he said, so as not to slow down launch and recovery of other aircraft.

Alderson pointed out that although the J-UCAS is planned for the Navy's next-generation carrier, the CVN 21 class, it also must be operable from the Navy's current Nimitz-class carriers.

"We are looking to see how little we have to change in terms of the carrier environment to accommodate [J-UCAS]," said Francis. "We really are looking not to change the whole nature of the ship."

By RICHARD R. BURGESS, Managing Editor