Army wants its helicopters to perform as UAVs - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Army wants its helicopters to perform as UAVs

The Army wants its existing helicopters to be able to fly without pilots — to be “optionally manned,” in the parlance of the service's new road map for unmanned aircraft systems.

The 140-page document was released April 15 at the Army Aviation Association of America conference in Fort Worth, Texas. It is intended to help industry understand what the service wants, said Col. Christopher Carlile, who directs the Army’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Center of Excellence at Fort Rucker, Ala.

The Army would prefer to upgrade its helicopters to perform UAV missions rather than buy expensive new aircraft, Carlile said.

The AH-64D Apache Longbow, the CH-47F Chinook and UH-60M Black Hawk already have most of the necessary electronics on board. Sikorsky plans to autonomously fly the UH-60M by year’s end, he said.

Now the Army needs to assess where it wants to introduce unmanned or optionally piloted aircraft, Carlile said. If flying the helicopters autonomously does not save money, then it won’t make sense to pursue the plan, he said.

The Army also wants its UAVs to operate as autonomously as possible while in flight and during takeoff and landing, Carlile said.

But UAVs that fire weapons autonomously are not part of the Army’s plan, he said.

“We don’t believe that, in the conduct of ground war fighting, you can possibly take out the soldier from that mix,” he said.

At the beginning of the road map development, Carlile learned right away that everyone wants a UAV.

“I was kind of shocked that I didn’t have the [Judge Advocate General’s] Corps, the lawyers, saying they needed a UAV for something,” he said.

To address the demand, the Army has to do a cost-benefit analysis for introducing UAVs into new missions, Carlile said. Swapping UAVs into a previously manned mission brings along new equipment, more training and sometimes requires more people, he said.

The missions that make sense as unmanned will become unmanned, he added.

The Army is also moving toward open architectures for its systems and a common ground control station.

“As we move into the future, and even into the near term, the commonality of systems and open architecture is not only required, but it’s demanded for any new equipment,” Carlile said.

The document is not a budgetary, acquisition or policy document, said Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli. Instead, it is a long-range strategic vision paper that is expected to be updated frequently, he said.

“This capability has forever changed the way the Army operates,” Chiarelli said.

LEARN MORE

• Find the new road map for unmanned aircraft systems in PDF form at www.rucker.army.mil/usaace/uas