BAMS,Eagle Eyes, and Dragon Eyes

The sea services muster unmanned aerial vehicles for growing list of missions

By DAVID BROWN

David Brown is a senior writer for Navy Times.

Somewhere in the Middle East, a unit of Marines is preparing to head into a village. Not knowing if they are about to hit friend or foe, one of the Marines pulls a five-pound piece of equipment out of his backpack.

It is called the Dragon Eye, and is about the size of a buzzard. The Marine hooks this unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV, to a slingshot, and off it goes. The Dragon Eye soars over the village, its cameras and antennas beaming images of the village back to a handset the size of a small laptop. Armed with the information he was looking for, the small-unit commander decides whether to keep going or call for reinforcements.

The scenario might seem far out, but Marines of the Corps' I Marine Expeditionary Force tested an unspecified number of Dragon Eye prototypes in the Middle East as they prepared for Operation Iraqi Freedom. Although no contracts for the program have been signed yet, said Nick Ritzcovan, a spokesman for the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory, it is a massive vote of confidence on the part of the Marines.

"It is called an extended user assessment," he said. "[Dragon Eye has] been deemed so promising that Marines in the field are actually using it."

As the U.S. military makes the first moves to transform itself with an emphasis on lighter, more flexible forces, the three sea services--Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard--are all charging ahead with their own multitiered plans to bring UAVs into their ranks.

Though the requirements and missions for each service's UAV programs are different, the goal is the same: use the limited amount of money available to transform these gadgets from concepts on the drawing board to machines that can carry out dangerous work and expand the military's reach without risking American lives.

Navy: Three Tiers

The Navy's UAV plan consists of three levels. At the top, is an aircraft surveying a broad area of ocean space from high altitude. In the middle is a stealthy plane capable of dropping bombs launched from an aircraft carrier. And at the low end, a vertical takeoff UAV lifts off from a ship and sweeps the area, serving as a forward scout.

The high-end program is called the Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) UAV. The Navy's plan is to take the job currently being performed by the P-3 Orion maritime patrol craft and split it between a follow-on Multimission Maritime Aircraft and a BAMS UAV.

The high-endurance BAMS UAV would conduct standoff surveillance, collecting electronic and signals intelligence that could be relayed to the area commander.

Another plan for the aircraft, according to Rear Adm. Thomas J. Kilcline Jr., head of aviation plans and requirements in the office of the chief of naval operations (OPNAV), is to equip the UAV with a wide-band transponder so it can be used as a communications tool for carrier battle groups. As a low-hanging satellite, the UAV could relay signals between aircraft and ships that are over the horizon and otherwise unable to communicate.

The Navy is conducting an analysis of alternatives for the aircraft, due out this summer. Current options include Northrop Grumman's RQ-4 Global Hawk and the RQ-1 Predator, the latter built by General Atomics. The first four UAVs would enter the fleet around 2009.

In the medium range of the Navy's concept for UAVs is the unmanned combat aerial vehicle, or UCAV. Although introduction of the vehicle is farther out than the BAMS, two contractors are already competing to field a UCAV in the fleet.

On 23 February, Northrop Grumman's X-47A Pegasus took off from a desert runway at the Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake, Calif., flew for 12 minutes, and returned for a landing. Although it was about to hit pavement on an open runway, the tailhook of the Pegasus was down--a nod to the potential customer, the Navy, which might eventually expect an airplane like this one to land on the heaving deck of an aircraft carrier.

"This is the very first step," said Dave Mazur, Pegasus program manager for Northrop Grumman. "We have to show we have the handling qualities necessary to get onto the carrier."

Last May, the competitor, the Boeing X-45, took its first flight from Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., and also flew autonomously.

"There has never been a pilot in the loop on that system--ever," said Charlie Guthrie, Boeing's director of rapid prototyping and advanced concepts for unmanned systems. "It has all been mission-planned and autonomously flown. And it will get more and more sophisticated as we go through demonstration and development phases."

Both UCAV programs have received advanced funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Also, both the X-45 and X-47 are technology demonstrators, rather than the final product configurations to be offered to the Navy.

Kilcline, the CNO's aviation advisor, said that the ideal UCAV will be an aircraft that can stay up longer and fly deeper into enemy territory than manned jets. Not only will it provide immediate targeting capability, but it can take out the target itself.

If all goes well, the first operational UCAVs will be launched from and arrested on carriers for reconnaissance missions by 2015. Strike variants are expected to follow in 2020.

For ships other than "flattops," the Navy wants a UAV that can take off vertically and fly ahead of the ship, not only shooting video but also relaying communications between a helicopter and the ship. For a time, the answer was believed to be the Northrop Grumman Fire Scout (now named Sea Scout) VTUAV (vertical takeoff UAV), a helicopter UAV built to replace the Pioneer UAV program and operate from the proposed DD 21 land-attack destroyer.

The destroyer program has since been restructured as the DD(X) program and will include a family of ships: destroyers, cruisers, and small Littoral Combat Ships (LCSs). In December 2001, the Navy and Marine Corps re-examined their requirements for a Pioneer follow-on and decided to halt Fire Scout production at five aircraft, which will be used for testing and evaluating UAV technologies only.

Kilcline pointed out that the program was not canceled. Rather, the testing and lessons learned from experiments with the five Fire Scouts will help the Navy find its true follow-on UAV. Issues to work out include greater survivability and the possibility of putting weapons aboard, he said.

The Navy's proposed fiscal year 2004 budget includes $302 million for UAV testing, which would allow Navy officials to test the Sea Scout on board a ship in the coming year.

At the heart of all the Navy's UAVs is the Tactical Control System, in which one control system can fly several different types of UAVs. The system has been tested in conjunction with the Predator and other UAVs. If successful, the control system would save deck space on a ship or in a ground station that flies several different UAVs. The service now uses a unique control system for each UAV, a "stovepipe" practice that some planners and operators say should not long remain.

"It is very important that we have that controlling system," Kilcline said.

Coast Guard: Eagle Eyes

It has been said that Navy UAVs are expected to replace the "dull, dirty, and dangerous" work currently shouldered by manned aircraft.

In the Coast Guard, however, where the missions far exceed the hardware to complete them, the main purpose for UAVs is to provide vision over ocean activities beyond the distance the current force can see.

Coast Guard UAVs fit into the wider scheme of the service's Deepwater program, a plan to replace Coast Guard's aging fleet with three classes of new cutters as well as new fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft and UAVs. Deepwater--a $17 billion acquisition plan--is scheduled for completion in approximately 20 years. The Coast Guard awarded the contract on 25 June 2002 to Integrated Coast Guard Systems, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.

On 8 February, the Coast Guard signed a contract with Bell Helicopter Textron for concept and preliminary design work for Eagle Eye UAVs, using three prototypes for testing in 2005. The aircraft uses tiltrotor technology, and bears a tiltrotor configuration similar in concept to the Marine Corps' V-22 Osprey aircraft. The Coast Guard anticipates the purchase of 69 Eagle Eyes if the aircraft meets the service's requirements.

"Right now, we're very committed [to Eagle Eye]," said Lt. Cdr. Troy Beshears, UAV program manager for the Coast Guard. "Unless something catastrophic occurs, the Eagle Eye will be the solution."

The solution is so crucial, Beshears said, because the Coast Guard doesn't have enough ships and aircraft to carry out its many missions. With fewer than 300 ships and some 200 airframes, the service must patrol 95,000 miles of shoreline, including inland waterways and offshore islands. And since 9/11, the Coast Guard's roles have greatly expanded to include several new and/or upgraded homeland security missions.

As program manager, Beshears does not work for Deepwater. Rather, he serves as the Coast Guard's "consumer reporter" for UAVs, constantly traveling across the United States and other countries to evaluate in person the performance of UAVs.

"It's my job to go out there and be as well informed a consumer as possible," he said. "I have to make sure I travel around and not just look at how a UAV performs on paper."

His challenge was to find a cost-effective aircraft that could stay aloft for long periods of time, but was flexible enough to operate at lower altitudes. A Coast Guard UAV, Beshears said, needs to zoom in on a pitching ship's hull and read six-inch-high letters to identify a vessel, something that can not be done cheaply from 10,000 feet, especially given the need to keep the UAV's payload under 90 pounds.

"The idea is to push out our borders to increase maritime surveillance," he said.

Because the Eagle Eye is a tiltrotor aircraft, it can take off and land like a helicopter and fly like an airplane. According to Bell Helicopter, the aircraft can fly at more than 200 knots, cruise for four hours at a time, and find moving targets 110 nautical miles away.

The Coast Guard will likely purchase five to eight Eagle Eyes per year starting in 2006. Ten years later, the service expects to either begin buying five to seven Global Hawks for wider surveillance, or leasing surveillance time on Global Hawks being flown by other services, Beshears said.

The challenge, he continued, is weighing the importance of payload with time aloft, making sure a UAV is not so loaded down with surveillance and communications equipment that it lacks the capability to stay in the air for extended periods of time.

He said he foresees greater cooperation with the Navy, particularly on missions in which a Navy ship sees another vessel, identifies it, and passes the information on to the Coast Guard, which could track the vessel as it approaches the U.S. shoreline.

Marine Corps: Dragon Eyes

During Operation Desert Storm in 1991, the Navy's RQ-2A Pioneer made headlines around the world when Iraqi soldiers surrendered to a UAV. The buzzing of the Pioneer, launched from a battleship, usually preceded naval gunfire. After hearing a Pioneer fly overhead, the Iraqis threw up their arms in surrender.

Retired in September 2002 from operational use by the Navy with Fleet Composite Squadron Six--which still uses the UAV for test work--the improved RQ-2B version is still in use by the Marine Corps' two UAV squadrons. The Pioneer--built by Israel Aircraft Industries and AAI Corporation--was first purchased by the Navy in 1985. The aircraft can fly at speeds up to 110 knots and remain airborne for up to four hours.

Since Operation Desert Storm, the Pioneer has flown on operational missions over Bosnia, Haiti, and Somalia. The introduction of the Pioneer was a quantum leap forward for the Navy, but electromagnetic interference from the ship, and the fact that a net was required to catch the Pioneer when it returned to the ship, contributed to many crashes. Like the Pioneer, the larger Predator also is used by the Navy for testing but not for operational missions.

The future of UAVs in the Marine Corps, Ritzcovan said, is with newer, smaller UAVs such as the Dragon Eye. Prototypes of the system already are in use, and the Marine Corps is expected to let a contract for full production sometime this year. The service is projected to buy 300 Dragon Eyes through 2006, he said. AeroVironment Inc. and BAI Aerosystems are competing for the contract, according to the website Globalsecurity.org.

Dragon Eye may look like a simple, remote-controlled airplane; however it is not flown with a joystick. The UAV is preprogrammed to fly over an area using "way points" provided by Global Positioning System satellites. An operator changes its course using keystrokes on the Dragon Eye system's laptop.

The Dragon Eye's wingspan is only 45 inches and the aircraft can be broken down into five pieces for carrying. The aircraft's sensors include two color cameras, low-light and infrared, each capable of transmitting video to a range of 10 kilometers. The aircraft--which costs between $60,000 and $70,000 per system--can fly up to 35 knots and has a battery endurance of one hour.

Since the Dragon Eye is battery-powered, "You can't hear it, and it's very hard to see once it's actually orbiting," Ritzcovan said.

Another Marine Corps system much farther away from production is the small, helicopter-like Dragon Warrior, a program also managed by the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory. Dragon Warrior is meant to "fill the mission-requirement void" between the Dragon Eye and a larger UAV.

The 230-pound Dragon Warrior is designed for surveillance and reconnaissance, precision targeting, battle damage assessment, and communications. The aircraft is expected to fly up to 100 knots for three hours at a time, or for a one-hour loiter period at a 75-kilometer radius.

The Marine Corps' plan is to be able to transport the vehicle and the ground-control trailer in a single "Humvee." The Dragon Warrior--which has a 35-pound payload capacity--could be launched from an amphibious ship or from shore.

In looking at UAVs across the spectrum, retired Rear Adm. Stephen Baker, a naval expert with the Center for Defense Information, said UAVs are more than engineering fancy, and will have a marked effect on the battlespace in the years to come.

"I think what we'll see by 2010 will be fairly breathtaking," he said. *