Army marks UAS one million flight hour milestone in pentagon ceremony

Yesterday saw the U.S. Army celebrate the milestone of surpassing one million flight hours for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS).  AUVSI's Brett Davis has a nice summary here of the highlights of press briefings given in front of static displays in the Pentagon courtyard of the Army's mainstay systems: General Atomics' MQ-1C GRAY EAGLE Extended Range Multi-Purpose UAS, AAI's RQ-7B SHADOW tactical UAS, and AeroVironment's RQ-11B RAVEN small UAS.  

UAS Program Manager COL Greg Gonzalez, his deputy Tim Owings, UAS system operators, and the various PM UAS Product Managers provided perspectives on the million-hour milestone and additional insights on their objectives relative to the various UAS programs, including:

-- Army employment of UAS has grown geometrically.  It took the Army 13 years to fly the first 100,000 hours with UAS, less than a year for the next 100,000 hours, and currently the Army is racking up more than  220,000 flight hours with UAS each year.

-- Funding for Army UAS has been robust because the contribution of UAS to the warfight is well acknowledged.  COL Gonzalez expects strong funding to continue as defense budgets are squeezed because of the value delivered by these systems. 

-- While the Army's development and ongoing testing of a UAS-specific off-angle-capable HELLFIRE P+ missile to be fielded with the MQ-1C to Afghanistan later this year, the Army continues to view UAS primarily as "hunting dogs" for other [manned] strike assets and sees the UAS-mounted weapons as systems of last resort when other weapons are not available in a timely-enough manner.

-- The ISR capabilities of the MQ-1C system are also being expaned via the recent demonstration of TRICLOPS -- wherein three EO/IR payloads were operated simultaneously from a platform by three distinct users to leverage coverage and imagery exploitation from a single UAS. 

-- Initiation of a new "SHADOW C" program remains under consideration within the Army but, failing approval of a new start, COL Gonzalez believes that improvement/spiral of the current RQ-7B SHADOW can achieve most of the desired capabilities.  (Countering some claims to the contrary, PM UAS made clear to DSJ that there is no plan at present to weaponize the SHADOW.)

-- Northrop Grumman's StarLite SAR/GMTI radar will replace General Atomics' LYNX radar in newly-fielded ERMP systems and will eventually backfill into fielded systems.  PM UAS officials anticipate a new, improved engine for the ERMP and is also working to field a new SIGINT payload for the GRAY EAGLE.

-- To supplement to the 4.5 pound RQ-11B RAVEN in the Small UAS (SUAS) class, the Army is near conclusion of a plan to develop and field SUAS systems of one pound and 13 pounds.