Navy Defends UCLASS Goals As Drone Decision Looms

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http://breakingdefense.com/2014/08/art-of-the-possible-navy-defends-goals-for-uclass-drone-as-decision-looms/



Lockheed Martin’s UCLASS concept.

Navy Defends UCLASS Goals As Drone Decision Looms
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. on August 19, 2014 at 1:58 PM

It’s crunch time for UCLASS. On September 10th — after multiple delays — the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer and his Defense Acquisition Board will sit in judgment on the proposed combat drone. The question: how best to bring the robot revolution to the deck of the 90-year-old aircraft carrier.

The “Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike” aircraft is most controversial and high-stakes component of the Navy’s multi-front strategy to employ drones alongside– not replacing — traditional piloted aircraft. Land-based, long-range patrols will use the MQ-4C Triton (derived from the Air Force Global Hawk) alongside the manned P-8A Poseidon. Small surface warships like the Perry-class frigate and the Littoral Combat Ship will use the MQ-8C Fire Scout unmanned helicopter alongside SH-60 Sea Hawks. But UCLASS will fly from the Navy’s thousand-foot-long flagships, its nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, multi-billion-dollar ships whose strategic value depends on the planes they carry.

Vocal critics in Congress and quieter ones inside the Pentagon contend that the Navy has dumbed down its specifications for UCLASS, turning it from a robotic stealth bomber into a modestly armed scout drone. Navy officials counter that the design will “be able to grow” from the technically achievable, fiscally affordable scout that enters service ca. 2021 into a high-end war machine.

The Navy hasn’t changed its requirements for UCLASS, it’s just “refined” them to reflect “the art of the possible” given current technology, said Rear Adm. Mat Winter, head of unmanned aviation at the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR).