Chile Orders SpyLite Mini-UAVs

SpyLite mini-UAV

With all the focus on North Korea, it’s easy to forget about the Latin American LAAD 2013 exhibition. Chile has been a regional leader in the use of UAVs, including their 2011 purchase of long-endurance Hermes 900s. Now, they’re taking the next step, and joining a larger trend by adding a short-range “over the hill” mini-UAV to complement the long-endurance Hermes. The new winner is also an Israeli firm, but this time the order went to BlueBird Aero Systems in Kadima, Israel, for their SpyLite mini-UAS. Bluebird CEO Ronen Nadir says that SpyLite beat competing systems “in both performance and price level.”

The F-22 Raptor: Program & Events

Into that good night

The 5th-generation F-22A Raptor fighter program has been the subject of fierce controversy, with advocates and detractors aplenty. On the one hand, the aircraft offers full stealth, revolutionary radar and sensor capabilities, dual air-air and air-ground SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses) excellence, the ability to cruise above Mach 1 without afterburners, thrust-vectoring super-maneuverability… and a ridiculously lopsided kill record in exercises against the best American fighters. On the other hand, critics charged that it was too expensive, too limited, and cripples the USAF’s overall force structure.

Meanwhile, close American allies like Australia, Japan and Israel, and other allies like Korea, were pressing the USA to abandon its “no export” policy. Most already fly F-15s, but several were interested in an export version of the F-22 in order to help them deal with advanced – and advancing – Russian-designed aircraft, air-to-air missiles, and surface-to-air missile systems. That would have broadened the F-22 fleet in several important ways, but the US political system would not or could not respond.

This DID FOCUS Article covers both sides of the F-22 controversies in the USA and abroad, and tracks ongoing contracts. It has been restored to full public access, as the F-22 program of record winds down into maintenance mode.

Naval Air, Unmanned: US Navy Flying Toward N-UCAS

UCAS-D/ N-UCAS concept

In early 2006 the future of DARPA’s J-UCAS program seemed uncertain. It aimed to create Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles (UCAV) for the USAF and Navy that could approach the capabilities of an F-117 stealth fighter. Boeing’s X-45C was set to face off against Northrop Grumman’s X-47B Pegasus, the program had demonstrated successful tests that included dropping bombs, and aerial refueling tests were envisioned.

J-UCAS was eventually canceled when the services failed to take it up, but the technologies have survived, and the US Navy remained interested. A May 2007 non-partisan report discussed the lengthening reach of ship-killers. Meanwhile, the US Navy’s carrier fleet sees its strike range shrinking to 1950s distances, and prepares for a future with fewer carrier air wings than operational carriers. Could UCAV/UCAS vehicles with longer ranges, and indefinite flight time limits via aerial refueling, solve these problems? Some people in the Navy seem to think that they might. Hence UCAS-D/ N-UCAS, which received a major push in the FY 2010 defense review. Now, Northrop Grumman is improving its X-47 UCAS-D under contract, even as emerging privately-developed options expand the Navy’s future choices as it works on its new RFP.

I Think I CAMM: Britain’s Versatile Air Defense Missile

CAMM-M/ Sea Ceptor

Britain’s Royal Navy currently uses Seawolf missiles as the primary air defense system for its Type 23 frigates. They’re updated versions of a missile that was used during the 1982 Falklands War, but modern threats demand more. Britain also needs to equip its Type 26/27 Global Combat Ship frigate replacements, and could use an option that raises the number of air defense missiles carried by its Type 45 air defense destroyers.

The answer to all of these problems is being developed as one component of Britain’s GBP 4 billion, 10-year “Team Complex Weapons” partnership with MBDA. It’s a quad-packable, intermediate-range air defense missile with its own active radar guidance, which re-uses a number of features and technologies from British fighter jets’ AIM-132 ASRAAM short-range air-to-air missile. Not only will it serve on British ships, but it’s set to field as an Army air defense missile, and may even fly on future British fighters.

Rapid Fire April 9, 2013: The Limits of China’s Categorical Denial, Underdog Messaging

• The US Navy will deploy a solid-state laser aboard USS Ponce during the coming fiscal year. USS Ponce, an amphibious transport dock ship formerly known as LDP 15, was refitted last year as an Afloat Forward Staging Base, Interim (AFSB-I), and will be deployed to the Persian Gulf. Iran will counter it with bad weather.