Defense Technology International - December 2007 - (Page 47)

The aerodynamics have been stable throughout the development program. The cranked kite, the buried inlet and exhaust have been robust. The crank decouples the mid-body from the wingtips and avoids a lot of near-stall problems that way, although it makes the LO guys’ hair turn grey. It’s very di erent from what we’ve seen in the past. The closed-loop controls run at a high rate. The whole world passes before the computer. At one point the Navy wanted us to demonstrate a “diveback” to the deck. But to do that we’d have to program it to [ﬂy the approach] wrong, and why would we do that? We don’t need active ﬂow control in the inlet. There are two craft in the 1940s and 1950s and ended up out of the airplane business. I don’t want to be the guy who builds the prototype while someone else does SDD (system development and demonstration). The battle-group commanders are taking notice of the capabilities in the UCAV. It’s not aviators driving the program as much as the black-shoe Navy. We’re constantly wearing out our shoe leather showing people what this system is capable of. But ﬁrst we have to demonstrate that the truck works, and then we can prove through wargames and [concept of operations studies] that this is more important than anything else anyone is doing. It makes sense, if it works, and I have a high degree of conﬁdence that it will work. Bob Work and Tom Ehrhard at CSBA depict UCAS as the start of a revolution in Navy airpower, indeed the salvation for Navy air. Do you agree? The CSBA has been the thought leader on this and has run some of the Pacific-area wargames. They have looked at Navy-based, long-range strike: what it is and how it can be used. We agree with them. It can be a hard sell in the Navy. I briefed at the NDIA (National Defense Industrial Assn.) and showed how the carrier comes under threat at 600-700 naut. mi. out. Some of the retired captains were ready to argue that issue vehemently, but the analysis is good. At that distance, the ﬁghters can’t get feet-dry. With UCAS, as the carrier gets closer you can put more and more eyes and bombs on the target [because sortie lengths decrease and UCAS do not have to ﬂy as far to be rearmed]. That allows the next waves of manned aircraft to be real killers. Will UCAS have to be on board the carrier full-time? The commander says, “I’m leaving Hawaii, and I’ll call you when I want aircraft.” We can keep them at Fallon [NAS, Nev.], or even at Palmdale, Calif., and we’ll send new airplanes out to the carrier at sea. The Navy spends an enormous amount of time keeping pilots current. They wear out airplanes in training. We see huge savings in dollars and manpower—not in acquisition but in operations. It’s hard to get your head around what the operation will be like. How do we train operators? But it’s more powerful, and by the way, it costs less. How will UCAS-D help in other competitions? We have borrowed things from the Global Hawk program and others will borrow from us. One of the things that we’re doing here is to build a skilled team doing a speciﬁc job, a sharp team at building a prototype and going to ﬂight test. That skill set will be used again. The Air Force will need a long-range strike capability, and our analysis shows that unmanned is a huge, watershed increase in performance. This team can build, certify and ﬂy a new class of aircraft, with the guts of the aircraft we have now, migrated into a much bigger “dustcover.” The “trons” inside are all in the bag. Autonomy is hard, if you’re doing it for the ﬁrst time. But we can base that on what we’re doing now. You lose GPS, you can use dead reckoning on the way back. Once you’ve ﬁgured something out, the ﬁrst thing that you do is ﬁgure out other ways to do it. This is a new nexus of requirements and capabilities. It’s what gets me up in the morning and gets me in here. I DECEMBER 2007 DEFENSE TECHNOLOGY INTERNATIONAL 47 SCOTT WINSHIP Background: director of the U.S. Navy’s X-47 Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstrator (UCAS-D) program. Led the team that won the UCAS-D contract for Northrop Grumman in August 2007. A former Navy pilot, he graduated from San Diego State University with a degree in aerospace engineering. Winship worked for Lockheed Martin in Marietta, Ga., on the YF-22 and F-22 programs before joining the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works in Palmdale, Calif., where he carried out assignments on the X-35 Joint Strike Fighter demonstrator program, ﬁnishing as product manager for the short-takeoff, vertical-landing X-35B. After joining Northrop Grumman, Winship headed the Fire Scout and Joint UCAS programs. When the Pentagon canceled Joint UCAS, Winship took over the surviving Navy elements of the program. ECS (environmental control system) ports in the inlet that clean up the ﬂow. We haven’t found anything, from static to high Mach, that needs it. How are you going to approach deck-handling? Our favored solution is a wireless controller in the hands of an experienced deck handler. We demonstrated that last year with the [X-47A] Pegasus. We’ve seen a lot of concepts that look good, but that seems right. Are you in favor of extending the program to include extras, like inﬂight refueling? It’s too preliminary a stage to volunteer the aircraft for other programs. I can’t promise anything because I don’t know how long it’s going to take me to get to the boat. But the J-UCAS program built a lot of capability into the aircraft—space for sensors and satcoms, and weapon bays plumbed for fuel, hydraulics and electric power. How do you keep the concept sold? I have a fear of being Bell Aircraft, which built advanced airwww.aviationweek.com/dti http://www.aviationweek.com/dti

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Defense Technology International - December 2007

Defense Technology International - December 2007 Contents Around the World Science Watch Tech Watch BrahMos: Ramjet Ship Killer r-e-s-p-e-c-t Deja Vu Trump Card Dubai Demos Agile Helos Joint Force Online Charge UGVs Creep, Crawl to Victory Sweet Ride Fast, Lethal Ship Defense Networking Stealth: Why Raptors Can't Talk The Net Cutting Edge First Person In Review Insight

Defense Technology International - December 2007

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