Stealth

Code Red| 19 December 2012 | IN ASSOCIATION WITH

X-47B stealth drone targets new frontiers

Sharon Weinberger (Sharon is a 2012/13 fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC, where she is working on a history of the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.)

The US Navy’s cutting-edge robot fighter plane aims to be the first unmanned aerial vehicle to take-off and land at sea.

As a fighter plane prepares to take off from a naval carrier at sea, the pilot and deck crew go through a tightly choreographed series of hand signals to tell each other they are ready to launch. It ends with a final “salute” from the pilot to indicate that the aircraft is ready to be catapulted off the deck.

But when the X-47B, the US Navy’s newest prototype combat aircraft, prepares for its first carrier launch early next year, there will be no salute.  That’s because there will also be no pilot. Instead, the X-47B will blink its wingtip navigation lights, a robotic nod to the human salute (and mimicking what the Navy does for night launches), before the catapult officer presses the launch button, and the robotic aircraft is flung off the front of the ship

After years of development, and recent land-based tests, the highly anticipated carrier flight for this stealthy, tailless, unmanned drone is imminent. “It should be in early in 2013,” says Carl Johnson, vice president and program manager at defence firm Northrop Grumman, which builds the X-47B. “We have to coordinate ship schedules as well as all the other airspace issues.”

The X-47B is a strike fighter-sized prototype drone developed as part of the United States Navy’s UCAS-D (Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstration) programme, which aims to develop technologies necessary to field a combat drone on carriers. As a result, it has folding wings and is built for the rigors of sea life, including salt water, deck handling and of course take-off and landing from an aircraft carrier.

Although the X-47B is a prototype, the Navy hopes to actually field operational unmanned combat aircraft on carriers by the end of the decade.

The unmanned “flying wing” aircraft, which takes some of its design cues from Northrop Grumman’s B-2 stealth bomber, is supposed to demonstrate reconnaissance and strike capabilities—it has a full-sized weapons bay, although the prototype will not fly with weapons.  And, unlike existing drones, which are usually remotely “flown” by pilots once in the air, the X-47B is designed to fly autonomously, with just the occasional click of a mouse from an operator to send it instructions.

“It’s a big deal, but it’s an extension of something that was already happening,” says Peter Singer, a senior fellow at the Brooking Institution in Washington, DC, and the author of Wired for War, a book on the military’s robotics revolution.

Forward fire

The craft was revealed in 2008 but is only now undergoing sea tests aboard the USS Harry S. Truman, including moving around on the carrier. Whilst this kind of trial may not sound remarkable, in some ways it’s one of the more challenging steps toward proving that the X-47B, which weighs in at 20,000 kg (44,000 lb) and has a 20m (62 ft) wing span, is ready for flight.

Getting around on a crowded flight deck is difficult, says Johnson, because the aircraft must maneuver very close the edge of the carrier, sometimes pivoting so that it appears that half the airplane is hanging off the ship. “The precision involved in doing that is very difficult with a pilot following directions from a person on the deck,” says Johnson. “It’s very difficult to do that as well with an unmanned system.”

As a result, the engineers have built a wireless remote control device that can be used to move the aircraft around the deck.

The X-47B has already been tested on land in conditions meant to mimic operations on a carrier deck, including a catapult launch, but operating on a real carrier crowded with people and equipment presents fresh challenges.  For example, the X-47B must be tested for electromagnetic interference, in other words, making sure that the aircraft’s electronic systems don’t clash with the myriad radar and emitters that are on a ship.

“While we go through a rigorous test program, you really learn a lot when you’re at sea and you’re validating your system against the true environment of the carrier,” says Johnson.

If all goes well with these tests, the Navy will then be ready for its first at-sea flight. This will likely be a short affair, according to Johnson, and will start with a catapult launch and end with the aircraft landing not on the carrier, but on firm ground. Later that year, the X-47B will also perform an “arrested landing,” meaning it will land back on the aircraft carrier.

Another key flight test will take place in 2014, when the X-47 demonstrates that it can perform autonomous aerial refueling. Currently, the craft has a range of around 3,200km (2,000 miles) and can stay aloft for six hours. But for effective operations, the Navy would like it to stay aloft for longer.

Head-to-head

Even if all those tests go smoothly, that doesn’t mean the X-47B will actually be deployed. The stealthy, aircraft is still merely a prototype. The Navy soon plans to launch a new program to develop an operational unmanned combat aircraft, which will involve fielding up to half a dozen armed drones on carriers by the end of the decade as part of what’s called the Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike program.

Early next year, the Navy will hold a competition to build the new drone. That means Northrop, the incumbent, will have to compete against other companies, including Lockheed Martin, which built the stealthy RQ-170 (famously captured by Iran), and General Atomics, which makes the familiar Reaper and Predator drones, and Boeing, which developed the X-45, a one-time competitor to Northrop’s drone.

Even as a prototype, however, the X-47B’s upcoming launch from an aircraft carrier, the “heart of US naval aviation”, marks a significant watershed for drones, says Singer.

“It’s one of the places where we haven’t seen them yet.”

Ultimately, the X-47B’s upcoming flight is not about proving that drones can work—that’s already been done—but expanding how and where they are used. “The Wright Brothers moment already happened,” says Singer. “Now we’re in the equivalent of 1920s and 1930s.”

 

Economics of Military

The involvement of armed forces in the security of London Olympics 2012 proved that shrinking military is not an option. Involvement of military in the largest peacetime operation ever in the history of UK went down splendidly.

 

Army warns Olympic Games recovery will take two years

Military faces big task to get back to normal, says planning chief, after deploying 18,000 troops to London 2012 duties

Nick Hopkins, defence and security correspondent | The Guardian, Monday 13 August 2012 20.30 BST

The armed forces will take two years to recover from their involvement in the Olympic Games because so many personnel have been deployed at short notice and taken away from normal duties, the military‘s chief planner for the Games has said.

In an interview with the Guardian, Wing Commander Peter Daulby also warned that critics who wanted a smaller military put the country at risk of not being able to cope with these kind of civil emergencies, or a “national strategic shock”.

Daulby, who was put in charge of the military’s Olympic planning 18 months ago, said the need to send thousands of extra troops to the Games at the last minute after the G4S debacle showed “the country needs a military for more than war fighting”.

Describing the Olympics as the largest peacetime operation ever performed by the armed forces, he said: “It just shows you the dangers of pulling the military down. I am sure that there are some people who think that if we are a smaller military power we will be less likely to get involved in international operations.

“If we shrink the military, do we really understand what we are losing? Look at the speed with which we pushed up the throttle. It proves the military offers the country a huge amount of resilience.”

Daulby, 45, was one of several senior officers who spoke to the Guardian about the military’s contribution to the Olympics, which increased more than threefold from May last year.

Then, only 5,000 personnel were expected to be deployed, but that increased to 18,000 when the Olympic organisers Locog admitted they had significantly underestimated the number of security guards needed at the venues – and G4S conceded it had over-estimated its ability to recruit and train the extra staff.

“We were originally planning to provide niche capabilities,” said Daulby. “When the requirement for venue security was doubled, that was a bit of a game changer. We had to generate 18,000 people. That does not mean that there are 18,000 spare people. It means that the government has prioritised [the Olympics].

“It will take two years to recover from this, to get back to normal, to get everything back into kilter. You can’t expect them to go back to normal routine very easily.”

He said the UK’s commitment to Afghanistan had not been affected by the Olympics, but the military had exceeded by 6,000 the maximum number of people he thought the Ministry of Defence could supply.

“Anything above 18,000 and you start to shut down elements of defence,” he said.

“We put a bucket of men up and that was taken. We put another bucket of men up and that was taken. We have proved we can do it … most people think they have done something really special here. I think there is a great sense that the UK has nailed this.”

The rush to train and get everyone ready meant “we were building the plane at the same time as flying the plane”, he said.

“We did not think that it would be healthy for the Olympic Games to be too militarised. Our fears were not well founded. It has been an enhancing experience.”

Brigadier Richard Smith said the scale and difficulty of the military’s role in London 2012 was comparable to operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“In terms of threat it is not comparable, but in terms of scale it is more than comparable. The complexity of the basing and the training to get them to task … it’s been a massive operation in a short space of time.

“In Iraq and in Helmand, we could build up over time and establish ourselves. For this we had a short space of time and we had to get it right first time.”

Smith said the armed forces had realised the need to reconnect with the British people after years of operations abroad, and admitted there was anxiety how the public would react to so many people in uniform at a sporting event.

With the UK withdrawing from Afghanistan, and British bases in Germany being closed, too, the public will need to get used to seeing more of the military, he said. “It is a really important point. We recognised we have an opportunity to set conditions for us when we are predominantly UK-based armed forces. We want to easily connect with the people from whom we are drawn. This has given us the opportunity to show us as professional and approachable human beings.”

Smith said the military had tried to be flexible when presented with concerns, including those from some competitors. “In the equestrian community, they were worried that the helicopters from HMS Ocean would scare the competitors in the dressage at Greenwich Park. We adjusted the flight paths so they did not. We didn’t want to blunder in as a blunt tool.”

Asked if the military could mount a similar operation in five years’ time – when defence cuts will have stripped 20,000 posts from the army – he said: “I am not going to answer that. Give us a challenge and we will rise to it.”

Among the most difficult tasks in the days before the Games was finding enough portable toilets and showers to equip Tobacco Dock, east London, where 2,500 personnel were stationed for the Games. The military works on the basis of one toilet for 10 people, and one shower for every 20.

 

“It has been a mammoth task,” said Major Austin Lillywhite. “We had to go to Ireland for the portable toilets. We couldn’t find them anywhere else at such short notice.”

The MoD hired 192 coaches to ferry troops to and from the Olympic venues, and spent £300,000 on equipment such as TVs for entertainment at the temporary bases.

It also signed a laundry contract so that military uniform for everyone on duty had been cleaned and ironed.

“We want the men and women to look a good standard. If they all turned their irons on at the same time in the morning, the power would go down.”

None of these contracts are coming out of the military budget. The Treasury and G4S will be paying for the military’s extra contributions.

G4S announced on Sunday that it was giving £2.5m to the armed forces as a goodwill gesture. The donation will go towards welfare amenities, including sports equipment, and to sports associations which have backed serving athletes, including rowing gold medallists Heather Stanning and Pete Reed.

Provisions supplied to feed the Olympics troops

Eggs: 205,800

Vanilla ice cream: 21,056 litres

Potatoes: 38,999 kilograms

Sausages: 7,756 kilograms

Apples: 33,376

Beef: 7,252 kilograms

Chicken: 5,240 kilograms