KRATOS
Kratos rendering of what their cost-conscious UCAV could look like.
Posted on 07/15/2016 6:28:17 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
The Air Force Research Laboratory has awarded target drone builder Kratos a contract to execute what it calls a Low-Cost Attritable Strike Unmanned Aerial System Demonstration (LCASD). This proof-of-concept initiative is centered on creating a (relatively) cheap unmanned combat aircraft that the USAF can afford to lose in combat, even opting to do so willingly by sending it on a one-way mission if need be. Alternatively, if the vehicle had the range to return to friendly territory, it could be repeatedly recovered and launched again on other missions, even from small bases without runways.
The contract’s total value is $40.8 million, but the Air Force is only coughing up around $7 million, with the rest coming out of Kratos’s pocket. A press release from Kratos states that, in exchange for their much larger contribution, they will “retain hard and other assets including aircraft, related support and other equipment, and important intellectual property, software, data, platform, and system rights. Additionally, planning by AFRL includes a desire to further evolve the system via subsequent technology maturation Government funded spirals valued at approximately $100 million.”
Here is exactly what the AFRL wants out of this demonstration phase:
The LCASD system KUSD will provide a configurable design for multiple variants, anticipated to perform various missions that could require Nap-of-The-Earth (NOE) Flight, Cruising at High Altitudes, Defensive Counter Air (DCA) Maneuvers, Offensive Counter Air (OCA) Maneuvers, the Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD), and the Destruction of Enemy Air Defenses (DEAD). Additionally, the System will also incorporate performance capability including extreme agility for missile avoidance maneuvers to improve survivability. The Kratos LCASD design will meet, or in certain cases significantly exceed, the following stated Air Force goals for the program:
UAS Acquisition Cost: $3 million or less for the first unit up to 99 units,
(Excerpt) Read more at thedrive.com ...
KRATOS
Kratos rendering of what their cost-conscious UCAV could look like.
Kratos - what they make when they impact the ground target.
They better hurry or Mohammed the Dronebomb Maker will beat them to it.
Can they launch it off of a CVN? Can it be used like the A-10?
“Can they launch it off of a CVN?”
A dump truck can be launched off a CVN
So it’s a cruise missile?
Re-inventing the V-1, makes sense to me.
Along with improvements in technology, I think we need to think a bit outside the box we’ve been in as far as limits to war fighting. There is always this discussion about asymmetrical warfare, well, lets get a bit asymmetrical ourselves and start using random truck bombs and IEDs against ISIS and their families and allied civilians. A bit shocking to our senses when you first think about it, but it is what they are doing to us and our allies. We need to crush these folks.
What was old is now new.
this very idea with these very drones was done in Vietnam under the program name HAVE LEMON , over 3500 mission flown, BQM-34A,35B firebee drones were ground launched, and air dropped from C130 motherships. They fired laser guided glide munitions and Maverick missiles which are twice the size of a hellfire our current drones fire recovery was done under parachutes. The major advance is satellite high bandwidth comms which allows the operator’s to not be in line of sight over the air battle.plus miniaturized GPS and TFR radars these old birds were hand flown by TV or on radar altimeter in TFR mode. there’s storys of drones going under powerlines and bridges they flew so low in nap of the earth flying this was in the 1970s.
www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/m-34.html
check out the bottom for the armed ones, these little guys are amazing drop tanks, ECM gear, photo recon we have been using drones for a LONG time, this is corporate pork they have had this technology for decades.The flyboys should have been replaced with machines for all defensive suppression and penetration missions in the 1980s but you don’t get the girls and the billions of pork funding by flying cheap.drones from a trailer in Nevada via satellite.
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