Special Activities

Exdrone to Dragron Drone: From Exercise to Operations

Following Exdrone’s strong performance during the Hunter Warrior AWE in March 1997, the Marine Corps plans to make it seaworthy for operational experimentation aboard amphibious ships. The Marine Corps Warfighting Lab is upgrading ten Exdrones as Dragon Drones with a shipboard launch and recovery capability, heavy fuel engine, forward-looking infrared (FLIR) sensor and differential global positioning system (GPS). The Marines plan to deploy them on at least one ship for demonstration purposes, beginning in FY 1998.

VTOL Evaluation

The Congress provided $15 million in FY 1997 to fund a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) UAV demonstration. The DoD determined that this activity required a competitive procurement and the Navy released a Broad Area Announcement (BAA) in October 1997. It plans to award one or more VTOL UAV contracts in December 1997 for demonstration(s) during FY 1998. The Navy’s objectives are to evaluate current VTOL UAV maturity and technology risks associated with a system development for naval operations.

Advanced VTOL Technologies Program

For FY 1998, the Congress has funded the start of a demonstration program for future VTOL UAV technologies, to include a stopped-rotor high-speed VTOL platform concept. This concept is embodied in a canard rotor/wing (CRW) design called Dragonfly. The CRW will perform as a helicopter for takeoff and landing and as a fixed-wing aircraft (using its stopped rotor as a wing) for high-speed cruise. Dragonfly’s potentially high-payoff technology may be applied to future manned as well as unmanned systems. 

PEO(CU) Move to Patuxent River, MD

The Navy’s Program Executive Office for Cruise Missiles and Joint UAVs (PEO(CU)), moved from Arlington, VA, to NAS Patuxent River, MD, in June 1997. Its UAV Joint Program Office (JPO) completed its transition in July. The overall move, which included the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR), was made in compliance with the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) decisions of 1993. PEO(CU) maintains a liaison office in Arlington, VA.

TMD Hunter/Killer Experiment

Army Special Operations Forces, using S-TEC Sentries and AeroVironment Pointers, are planning to participate in Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) -sponsored exercises during the winter of 1997 – 98. The UAVs will be the “hunters” in active Theater Missile Defense (TMD) hunter/killer teams attempting to find and destroy tactical ballistic missile launchers before they can launch their missiles.

Center for Interdisciplinary Remotely Piloted Aircraft Studies (CIRPAS)

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) established CIRPAS in Spring 1996 to provide UAV flight services to RDT&E customers in their development, testing and evaluation of UAV technologies, payloads, and system capabilities. Assets include the Pelican (a Cessna 337 derivative) and Aerosonde low-altitude and the Altus high-altitude AVs, satellite communications, a GCS, air traffic control relay radios, and selected monitoring and payload packages. Assets may be leased as turn-key UAV operations to support research. CIRPAS is associated with the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA, and will operate from Ft. Hunter-Liggett from 1998 on.