Tuesday, July 26, 2005

UAV Successfully Fires Test Rockets

War

A couple days ago the RQ-8 Fire Scout fired two Mark 66 unguided rockets, becoming in the process the first autonomous, unmanned helicopter to undergo a successful live weapons fire. 

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Northrop Grumman is developing the Fire Scout for both the Army and Navy.  “Today’s test is a big step in the development of future UAVs across the entire industry,” said Doug Fronius, Northrop Grumman’s Fire Scout program director.  NG is a big player in the unmanned autonomous vehicle field - uavs in service, production or development include the U.S. Air Force RQ-4 Global Hawk and Army RQ-5 Hunter that are already in service; the BQM-34 and BQM-74 aerial targets; the multi-role Hunter II proposed for the Army’s next-generation, extended-range, multi-purpose UAV program; the X-47 Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Air Force and Navy; and advanced systems like the KillerBee program being developed for low-altitude, long-endurance missions.

This is the future.  Stealth can be defeated.  Spoofing and jamming systems can be defeated.  Any manned combat vehicle is vulnerable.  Given our aversion to avoidable casualties, it will make increasing sense for hazardous missions to be alotted to autonomous combat vehicles.  Instead of sending a billion dollar B-1, and risking the lives of its crewmen, send in a a flock of hundred thousand dollar drones armed with bombs and missiles.  With satellite links back to controllers sitting in front of a monitor hundreds of miles away, you have greater ability to call the shots and ensure the destruction of the target.  Loss of one or two drones doesn’t risk mission failure.  No possiblility of friendly casualties.  The fighter jocks and bomber pilots in all the services will fight this hard, but the logic of redunduncy, accuracy, safety, economy will eventually win no matter what they do.


Posted by Buckethead on 07/26/05 at 05:42 PM
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