Robert Mitchell, vice president, Special Programmes, Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems flew to London on Wednesday 22 February to present a lecture on Fire Scout UAV developments to an audience at the Royal Aeronautical Society. He had been invited by the Society’s Rotorcraft Group and faced an audience that comprise substantially of the Royal Navy’s EH101 Merlin community.
In the middle of January 2006, off NAS Patuxent River, Maryland, a Northrop Grumman RQ-8A Fire Scout unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) successfully completed nine autonomous landings on the USS Nashville over two days.
The landings, three on 16 January and a further six the following day, were made in calm conditions with no more than 15 knots of wind over the deck. They were made without using the harpoon capture system that will be fitted to naval ships when Fire Scout begins operations with the Navy sometime after 2008.
With an initial run of seven MQ-8Bs now scheduled for production for the Navy, key dates are the DT&E flight test which is expected later this year followed by OPEVAL and then IOC by the end of 2008.
Source and more info: shephard
This equipment is an automatic deployment vehicle halting device which has been designed to seriously effect the use of vehicles which may be carrying ballistic content from reaching their target.
The name BOBULA* is given to express the way in which the energy isreleased on the road surface, when deployed from a Helicopter, UAV, (or Police/Military vehicle, positioned ahead of a suspect vehicle behaves until it comes to standstill as an effective arresting device.
These equipments are members of a specialised family of vehicle arresting devices whereby ‘pin point’ accuracy of target aquisition is achieved by aerial descent.
Derived from our Airfield Denial Weapon system and means to deny the Scud Missile Transporter as a stable Missile firing platform.
Source and more info: shephard
The California company that produces the Predator drone has joined forces with General Dynamics Canada to pitch the American-made UAV to the Canadian military.
General Atomics’ Aeronautical Systems unit has signed a memorandum of understanding with General Dynamics, Canada’s largest defense contractor, to offer GA’s Predator B UAV to “meet the Canadian government’s surveillance needs.”
“(Our) establishment of a working relationship with General Dynamics Canada represents a strategic commitment by both companies to help Canada strengthen its domestic security and sovereignty, as well as its defense operations overseas,” said General Atomics’ Thomas Cassidy.
It is more than patriotism that drives the GA-GD alliance:. The Canadian military is preparing to spend $429 million to acquire UAVs over the next four years under the JUSTAS, the Joint Unmanned Surveillance Target Acquisition System program.
The goal of the program is to equip Canadian troops with a fleet of drones that can perform reconnaissance missions in support of military operations overseas, and fly long-range surveillance missions over Canada’s vast and sparsely populated coast.
Source and more info: upi
eal Group analysts predict that an estimated 600,000 missiles valued at $103.7 billion are expected to be built throughout the world between 2006-2015. They released their forecast at Asian Aerospace 2006, in Singapore’s Changi Exhibition Centre.
Surface-air missiles (SAMs) still constitute the largest single missile market (48,194 missiles/ $24.3 billion/ 23.4%), followed by air-to-surface attack missiles headed the other way (41,610/ $16.3 billion/ 15.7%). They’ll be accompanies by the third-place category smart munitions, which have rocketed upward to a forecast of 273,635 guided bombs and 38,615 smart AT munitions ($13.8 billion/ 13.3%). Surface-to-surface missiles, which includes ballistic missiles, land-launched cruise missiles, et. al., were in fifth place (6,206/ $9.8 billion/ 9.4%); followed by anti-armor missiles (140,759/ $10.9 billion/ 10.6%), air-to-air dogfighting missiles (41,470/ $9.6 billion/ 9.3%); and anti-ship missiles (5,050/ $6.4 billion/ 6.2%). Finally, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which comprised only 5,382 forecasted units ($2.9 billion/ 2.5%) in 1997, now rank fourth with 17,976 projected units valued at $12.5 billion, or 12.l%.
Source and more info: defenseindustrydaily
When unmanned Predator aircraft prowled the skies of Afghanistan using their electric eyes to hunt down al-Qaida operatives, they provided examples of a blossoming technology that probably will become more common in civilian uses.
Over about 10 years, unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, have been employed by the military to perform dangerous duties. But other uses — including homeland security and scientific experiments — are being explored, along with ways to integrate the aircraft into the daily operations at the nation’s municipal airports, according to researchers at New Mexico State University’s Physical Science Laboratory.
UAVs will generally be employed in jobs that are “dull, dirty or dangerous,” said Phil Copeland, the laboratory’s deputy technical director. They also could provide a cheaper alternative to using large, piloted aircraft.
“There are lots and lots of new UAV systems out there,” said Steve Hottman, the laboratory’s aerospace technical director. “The primary users are related to security and defense.”
The U.S. Border Patrol has flown UAVs on test missions in Arizona and Texas, Hottman said. The laboratory, which is working on mainstreaming UAVs into the civilian airspace, has received two contracts from the 46th Test Group at Holloman Air Force Base that so far have been worth about $12 million and other, smaller contracts, from industry groups.
Source and more info: borderlandnews
A Wheeling model plane company is working to build a miniature jet for the U.S. military that can be used for surveillance overseas, similar to the Predator drone.
Iron Bay is under contract with the Office of the Secretary of Defense to build and test a number of unmanned planes for various uses. They are relatively inexpensive compared to current unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, already used by the military.
Iron Bay owner John Craig said the company has built one UAV and plans to produce five more for the first phase of the contract.
The 10-foot-long plane named XTM is still in the early stages and will continue to be tweaked before it flies over the skies of Afghanistan, Iraq and the Mexican border.
Source and more info: dailymail
After supporting the global war on terror for three years, Global Hawk Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Number 3 (UAV-3) received its official homecoming Monday at California’s Edwards Air Force Base.
During its overseas deployment, UAV-3 logged more than 4,800 flight hours supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom and the Combined Task Force — Horn of Africa.
On hand at the homecoming event were Maj. Gen. Curtis Bedke, commander, Air Force Flight Test Center; Randy Brown, director, Global Hawk Systems Group; Gary Ervin, sector vice president, Northrop-Grumman Integrated Systems Western region and Maj. Mike Lyons, Global Hawk pilot and chief of standardization and evaluation, 12th Reconnaissance Squadron.
The Global Hawk program is managed by Aeronautical Systems Center’s Global Hawk Systems Group of the Reconnaissance Systems Wing at Edwards.
Global Hawk UAV-3 was deployed after the attacks of September 11, 2001. The Air Force decision to deploy it while still an advanced concept technology demonstrator expressed the confidence the Air Force has in it and future unmanned aircraft systems for the global war on terrorism, Global Hawk officials said.
Source and more info: aero-news
Picture an intruder stepping stealthily across an international borderline. Now shift to a U.S. Command and Control center several miles away where a computer system is alerting a security officer to the intruder’s movement, having detected the slight sound of a footstep and zeroed in on the intruder’s exact location. The security officer dispatches a UAV to monitor from the air, ground forces to intercept on the ground, and the intruder is stopped.
The detection, classification, location, and tracking system is a recently de-classified covert surveillance and intelligence gathering system, which is now in full-scale development as a result of a licensing agreement between the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC), Newport, R.I., which invented the sensor technology, and GCS Research of Missoula, Mont., which is further developing and commercializing it.
Source and more info: gisuser
An estimated 600,000 missiles of virtually all types valued at $103.7 billion are expected to be built throughout the world in the 2006-2015 decade, predict Teal Group analysts in their latest world missile market production forecast released at a major international trade show.
Teal analysts released their forecast at Asian Aerospace 2006, the international aerospace exhibition for the Far East and Pacific regions. Asian Aerospace 2006 is taking place Feb. 21- 26, 2006, at the Changi Exhibition Centre in Singapore.
“We believe that declines in world defense spending in the 1990s have bottomed out in the past few years so far as missiles are concerned,” said Steve Zaloga, lead analyst for Teal Group’s World Missiles & UAVs Briefing, the 1,400-page, monthly-updated competitive intelligence service, in which this and seven other missile, UAV and smart munitions market forecasts and 156 individual missile system reports are published and regularly updated.
“In budget-strapped times, it is more cost effective to add a new generation of dogfight missiles to an older aircraft than to buy a new aircraft,” said Zaloga. “Likewise, ships and many other weapons categories. Missiles offer to increase the combat capabilities of many weapons platforms without the need for the expense of replacing the system itself.”
Source and more info: Yahoo
An estimated 600,000 missiles of virtually all types valued at $103.7 billion are expected to be built throughout the world in the 2006-2015 decade, predict Teal Group analysts in their latest world missile market production forecast released at a major international trade show.
Teal analysts released their forecast at Asian Aerospace 2006, the international aerospace exhibition for the Far East and Pacific regions. Asian Aerospace 2006 is taking place Feb. 21- 26, 2006, at the Changi Exhibition Centre in Singapore.
“We believe that declines in world defense spending in the 1990s have bottomed out in the past few years so far as missiles are concerned,” said Steve Zaloga, lead analyst for Teal Group’s World Missiles & UAVs Briefing, the 1,400-page, monthly-updated competitive intelligence service, in which this and seven other missile, UAV and smart munitions market forecasts and 156 individual missile system reports are published and regularly updated.
“In budget-strapped times, it is more cost effective to add a new generation of dogfight missiles to an older aircraft than to buy a new aircraft,” said Zaloga. “Likewise, ships and many other weapons categories. Missiles offer to increase the combat capabilities of many weapons platforms without the need for the expense of replacing the system itself.”
Source and more info: Yahoo
