Forum: Technology

The Hellfire - Predator combo was old hat when I left SAF/IARW but the MQ-9 was not yet on line. GH had just completed the Elint demo at Nordholtz Germany (I was there for that). Due to the favorable PR they were getting, every swinging D___ country wanted big UAVs (especially the Predator due to it's lower cost and smaller logistical footprint) but State, OSD, and Congress were dead set against them going to anybody but countries with whom we had a defense treaty (in any configuration, not necessarily armed). Examples are Italy buying Predator and Germany buying Global Hawk aircraft to install their own payload (ELINT package built by EADS); both however were commercial sales on export licenses and NOT a US Govt FMS sale. Not that we wouldn't have done FMS, but FMS means the US is managing the program for them (for a significant fee) and the bigger countries would rather manage the programs themselves.

The big obstacle to UAV exports was the Missile Technology Control Regime, a non-binding "gentleman's agreement" amongst 33 nations that they would not proliferate ballistic or Cruise missile technology. The "do-not-transfer" specs were any autonomous vehicle that could go at least 300 km and carry at least 500 kg of payload. Seems the bigger UAVs (i.e. Predator and Global Hawk) got caught up in that (on purpose actually) and no one was interested in changing it. As a result, there was a "presumption of denial" regarding exports of these systems. It was stupid but never let logic interfere with politics...

My last assignment was building the interagency case to sell Predator to a Specific (un-named) country that had be very supportive of us in the GWOT and the CSAF wanted to reward them. I spent the last 6 months of my career banging my head against every wall at State, OSD, Congress, etc trying to convince people that Predator was harmless (for reasons I can't go into here). I was gaining traction when I left but as of Spring 04 no sales were pending.

Apparently progress is being made...unless you're talking about a country were are already "treatied" with, then it's no big deal. I just don't know who you're talking about. But you have piqued my interest greatly...

To answer your question, I'm now back in the flight test business as an overpaid (just kidding boss Embarassed

) contractor in "Fabulous Las Vegas".

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Roscoe wrote:

My last assignment was building the interagency case to sell Predator to a Specific (un-named) country that had be very supportive of us in the GWOT and the CSAF wanted to reward them. .

Elpstan

Forum Veteran Joined: Dec 15, 2006 - 12:28 AM Posts: 760

elp wrote:

Discussion. Take 18 top condition boneyard F-16s, refirb them to make them UCAVs and stand up the squadron out in the desert somewhere safe and do first hand looks at pushing real strike sorties with the aircraft. Ops, maintenance, planning, command issues etc. It would be a good learning experience for the USAF. What works with fast mover UCAVs and what doesn't.

This would be a money in the bank learning curve for USAF. Even if gross errors were made it would still go into our general fund of knowledge of what it takes to run a fast mover UCAV squadron.

Fund this ( somehow Laughing

)

One example- a two ship UCAV F-16 setup doing a nap of the earth approach to the target, pop up/toss a couple JDAMs from 5 miles out and RTB.

Discuss-

In basic theory it is a good idea, however I suspect it is far from practical, it is likely to be more expensive and less effective than an aircraft that is designed from the beginning to have UAV capability.

The control systems and computer systems of the F-16 are designed to specifically interface with a human. It would take a considerable amount of rework to make it a basic UAV. It would require a virtually complete redesigning of the electronics to make it even close to effective as a pilot. The problem is getting the information back to the ground or making the computer system and sensor system smart enough and as capable as a human pilot.

I think it would be best to design aircraft from the beginning (the ground up) to be UAVs or multi-rolled (UAV and human piloted). I think the resulting aircraft in the end would be cheaper and more effective.

It's relatively easy to make a UAV that can go into areas with no threat and take samples or photos. However to make it capable of deploying weapons accurately on-the-fly would be difficult. It's easy to preprogram a mission, however adaptability and flexibility can be a UAV's weakness. Therefore a fully autonomous UAV is not as effective unless it has the capability to feed data to ground controllers and to receive commands from the ground controller in real-time.

Sure the ECM can be operated on automatic, however sometimes it is more effective to use it in the manual mode. Typically with UAVs that have feedback, there is lag, thusly there isn't enough time to respond to time critical information. The time you have between a launch warning in the time that you have to do something to avoid a missile is often a very slim margin. Often if you're trying to spot and engage moving targets there is a very narrow window of opportunity, so as a result by the time the controller sees the target gives the command and fires, you would probably be often firing at ghosts because of lag. Ground controllers might see a lock, however the information might be a few seconds old so there might be no lock so you might be just wasting weapons by firing.

The lag increases opportunities for embarrassing situations. May I remind you of the video of the bomb that was dropped on a rail bridge, because all the lag between the time the bomb was dropped and it the target gave enough time that a passenger train crossed the bridge the same moment the bomb hit, thusly the bomb hit the train, causing much embarrassment, and was portrayed by some as a deliberate assassination of civilians. With a UAV operated from a remote location, the lag would have even been greater, thusly the risk of this type of situation would be even greater.

http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/990413d.mpeg

http://www.balkanpeace.org/index.php?in ... lan10.incl

I think it is best to start from the ground up as both versions (piloted and UAV) like I think they started doing with the X-36.

http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/200 ... 0716m.html

The X-36 that they tested was a UAV testbed model, but the testbed was designed to simulate a human and UAV piloted aircraft.

I think we also need some rotary UAVs that are on a human scale. Remember the helicopters dropping sandbags on the reactor at Chernobyl. It would be nice if we had UAVs that could do the same thing without exposing humans to the immediate area.

Rotary and fixed wing UAV aircraft could be helpful if there ever was a large-scale use of nuclear or biological weapons. To take air samples to help evaluate what areas are dangerous and not and the type of threat.

Combat aircraft have been used as UAVs since World War II. One of the Kennedys was killed piloting a bomber that was converted to be flown via radio control. I think there was plans to use a UAV A-1 to survey the damage and measure radiation levels if we had to continue to use nuclear bombs on Japan. Fortunately Japan surrendered.

Amazing...we said the exact same thing when the QF-4 replacement plan start evolving toward a QF-16 solution. Many of us argued that a new disposable plane could be built from scratch and operated a whole lot cheaper that modifying F-16s. Take the engines out (the most expensive part) and build the rest.

Logic however flew in the face of emotion...after all, that's the way we've always done it! Twisted Evil

Interesting ...things have not changed that much, talks are on-going for FMS and a couple of Commercial buys. You were definitely much more involved then I but I am being exposed to many technology transfer issues, SAF/IA of course is leading the charge.

I follow along, learning and helping identify issues of supportability (tech transfer) from...(possible up-coming Hill AFB supportability issues) and our FM friends. Most items have been previously identified, sounds like you were in on that beginning phase of it.

Multiply tests (are an event now) and co-sharing (FM) is right around the corner, or so it appears.

Thanks...the (your baton) was passed well, many folks engaged...looks very promising.

Good job and best of luck with flight testing, cool stuff - do you miss your old program?

Last edited by Roscoe on Jun 29, 2007 - 07:39 AM; edited 1 time in total

Meathook wrote:

Good job and best of luck with flight testing, cool stuff - do you miss your old program?

Not really. Learned a lot, traveled internationally a lot, hob-nobed with quite a bit of high brass, but in the end, it's still a Pentagon job with the political and backstabbing baggage that comes with it. Much prefer flight testing.

I understand.....Salute

Forum: Technology

UCAV F-16 Squadron?