via DefenseTech.
The Navy plans to load their next generation carrier drone with a wide range of weapons, including GPS-guided precision-strike air-to-ground weapons called Joint Direct Attack Munitions, or JDAMs, service officials said.Defense officials always talk about the F-35 being more than just a weapons platform but also an intelligence asset.
The Unmanned Carrier Launched Surveillance and Strike aircraft is being designed as a carrier-launched Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance and Targeting, or IRS&T, technology, will also be designed to accomodate a next-generation Active Electronically Scanned Array radar, or AESA.
The exact weapons payload to be engineered on the Unmanned Carrier Launched Surveillance and Strike aircraft is still a work-in-progress and something that will be influenced by the competing vendors offering designs, said Capt. Beau Duarte, program manager, unmanned carrier aviation program office.
While weaponization for the UCLASS is not planned as an immediate step, it is considered by developers to be an integral part of the platform’s future capabilities. It is expected the UCLASS will be able to draw from most of the weapons currently being used on the Navy’s carrier wings.
“Weapons requirements will be defined in the final proposals. It is up to the vendors to come back with proposals and leverage what is available,” Cmdr. Pete Yelle, UCLASS/UCAS-D requirements officer.
While adding weapons will be a significant future development for the UCLASS platform, the technology is still primarily intended as an ISR platform, Navy officials said.
Now, so is the Navy UCAV.
So tell me.
Which is going to be more cost effective. A carrier with UCAVs and F-18s or F-35s, F-18 and UCAVs?
If you said F-18s and UCAVs you're right.
Probably deadlier too. You send your strike fighter after the Chinese anti-ship ICBMs, do you send your manned fighters or do you send UCAVs? Which is easier to plan? Destruction of vehicles if they're downed or destruction and recovery of pilots if they're downed?
UCAV for the win.
But more importantly, this is a direct shot across the bow of the F-35. This convinces me more than ever that the Navy is actively planning for the F-35 to either fail or price itself out of future Navy Air Wings.
I posted a month ago on the new assignment of Capt. Beau “Abu” Duarte as the new chief of the
ReplyDeleteNavy's Unmanned Combat Air System Program Office (PMA-268) at Pax River NAS.
I like Abu's CV (and his name is cool). He's the right man at the right time, I do believe, to pull this off. Check him out here.
http://www.navair.navy.mil/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.displayBio&key=95FF1F3A-C892-4F34-A2C9-153377DC5561
Ooops -- I don't mean THAT CV. I mean his bio.
Deletewow, you are now placing the viability of a program on Someone's name.....
Deletethe X-47 has been out to sea a couple times now, has passed its trap tests and even did a few unplanned bolts. additionally the Navy is announcing that it will probably carry the same stealth bomb load as the F-35. what does that tell ya? it tells me that it will be the pre-first day of war airplane and that as soon as the allies get wise to what the Navy is cooking they're going to be dumping F-35s and buying X-47s as soon as they can. and lets be honest here. once the Navy gets this program rolling the F-35 will probably lose orders in the USAF to this unmanned airplane.
DeleteNo, David, as usual you didn't get it. I was pushing his bio. BIO, David, CV, curriculum vitae, David, you dumb ox.
DeleteI wonder if the Navy will use this kind of UCAVs as an «unmanned wing man»?
ReplyDeleteSend then in front of manned aircraft and providing real time ISR to the SuperHornet...on top of that it could(with its long loiter time and all aspect stealth) be a great way of performing the Iron Hand mission...as soon as a radar becomes active it will kill it...
I like your idea there Nuno. If it is too dangerous for an unmanned UCAV/X47, no way USAF is sending in a manned F35! Actually, a dual seat SHornet or Growler is a far better platform than F35 for the mother-ship role since it is a two seater, surely easier to operate from the back seat than just from the front seat F35.
ReplyDeleteA while back I posted a segment of an interview with USMC Col. Art “Turbo” Tomassetti, the father of the STOVL, and his response to: What impact will the F-35 have on US Marine Corps operations? His response:
ReplyDelete"The F-35 will have a significant impact on the Marine Air-Ground Task Force in bringing fifth generation capabilities and flexibility. It will be an important node in a networked battlespace by gathering and disseminating information, which can increase the overall situational awareness for Marines on the ground as well as for Marines and other friendly forces in the air."
A drone could do that, right? A manned $200 million strike fighter is not a requirement for a net-centric "node in a networked battlespace by gathering and disseminating information." Situational awareness for Marines on the ground and other friendly forces in the air.
http://www.codeonemagazine.com/article.html?item_id=122
I think what is forgotten is that the F-35B 'node' is also doing other things besides sharing the 'fused information' with other F-35Bs and other 'nodes' elsewhere. Can your 'so called drone' do this multi-tasking?
DeleteI don't know, that's why I made it a question.
DeleteI am not qualified in that field.
What do you think?
Why is a pilot necessary to fly a receiving-transmitting sensor?
Is the pilot controlling and directing information? I don't think so.
Isn't it done by the 24 million lines of code (ten on each plane)?
The sensor fused information in the F-35 can be transmitted to other nodes securely without pilot intervention whilst those F-35s can pass on that info to others within range and so on. Meanwhile the pilot can be leading the flight for whatever other purpose - not concerned with the information except how it will apply to the circumstances. The F-35 pilot can get on with the other tasks needed. The F-35 is a multi-tasking aircraft when most tasks can be carried out without pilot intervention except when necessary for the task at hand. The F-35 is not a single mission aircraft where the sensor data needs pilot attention to make sense of it. This is done by the computer fusion engine. I hesitate to point you to SLDinfo for very detailed explanations about these issues, because on another F-35C? thread you seem hell bent on 'killing the F-35' - or am I mistaken?
ReplyDeleteOkay, after all that verbage I guess you're saying that the so-called "computer fusion engine" might serve adequately on a UCLASS? We don't need F-35 as a platform to carry it?
DeletePS: I am not "hell bent" on anything. I am in fact heaven bent.
What total quantity of Block 3 capability (the original Block 3 not the watered down one) of the F-35 can be demonstrated today....12 years after contract award?
Deletezero.
DeleteThe JSF is now being operated with training software. Then comes Blocks 2B/3I, then Block 3F which is at least three years behind schedule. Block 3F adds capabilities that are key to the F-35’s core mission‚ such as multi-ship suppression, destruction of enemy air defenses and new air-to-air and air-to-ground modes. This package also will include the full complement of weapons carried internally and externally on the aircraft.
General Bogdan April 2013: “I see more risk to the delivery of Block 3F, our full warfighting capability, by 2017. . .Software remains the biggest risk of the F-35 program.”
Looks like China might get there before the USN....
ReplyDeletehttp://thediplomat.com/2013/11/will-chinas-new-stealth-drone-fly-from-aircraft-carriers/
i am wondering with all of these tests does it give NG a leg up in the UCLASS competition, i hope so but 4 companies are vying for the prize, including lockheed martin (heaven forbid they get it and it turns into the 35 problems). also all are a flying wing concept except for the General Atomics Avenger which is a modified reaper, interesting the the Lockheed sea ghost and phantom ray from boeing look almost exactly like or very similar to the 47. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmanned_Carrier-Launched_Surveillance_and_Strike_program
ReplyDeleteHate to burst your bubble Sol (well, not really), but the X-47B will NEVER enter service. You read it here first. The UCLASS requirement has been completely rewritten so as to end up with something more like a Reaper.
ReplyDeleteNavy Plans to Arm UCLASS with JDAMs 21 Nov 2013 Kris Osborn
ReplyDeletehttp://defensetech.org/2013/11/21/navy-plans-to-arm-uclass-with-jdams/
"...“The UCLASS is primarily an ISR platform....
...It is not going to replace the Joint Strike Fighter....
...“We really need an organic ISR&T platform inherent to the air wing. Currently that does not exist and we rely on a lot of external sources. The capability will significantly enhance and force multiply the air wing and the strike group as a whole,” said Yelle." [Cmdr. Pete Yelle, UCLASS/UCAS-D requirements officer]
Only JDAM's? But they are subsonic and Sol has already told us how useless subsonic weapons are...
ReplyDeletei stand by that when talking about attacking air defense frigates or destroyers. but subsonic weapons will be adequate when talking about the deep strike mission or air support.
Delete