Replacement Army/Navy Aerial Common Sensor Aircraft Will Be a UAV

The Nav Log ^ | 9/12/07 | ltn72

[pabianice]

In September, 2007, Northrop Grumman, the prime contractor for the U.S. Army's RC-12 Guardrail aircraft fleet, was awarded a $462 million Guardrail Modernization system integration contract to continue upgrading and enhancing the system, which had, until recently, been slated to be replaced in the next several years. The Guardrail system provides precision targeting, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance using the RC-12 aircraft. The RC-12 was to have been replaced by, first, a variant of the Navy’s in-development P-8 (a replacement for the P-3C and EP-3E), and then by a highly-modified Embrauer ERJ-145. The electronic version of the P-8 was dropped as too expensive and too far out, and the ERJ-145 was dropped after engineers admitted that its systems were insufficient to provide the required electrical load of a “spook” bird.

The award coincides with Northrop’s completion of a program of simulations, demonstrations and tests to satisfy the DOD that its involvement with BAMS could provide low programmatic and technical risk.

The RC-12 is a variant of the Hawker-Beechcraft King Air B200 and is one of the three electronic eavesdropping and surveillance planes that were for replacement by the joint Army-Navy Aerial Common Sensor (ACS) aircraft. With the ever greater uncertainty surrounding a successor follow-on manned aircraft, the current system is being extended with the new contract.

It seems clear that the saga of ACS is ever more closely linked to that of the Navy’s P-8 and BAMS (Broad Area Maritime Surveillance program), an unmanned aircraft that is intended to help the new P-8s (the Navy states that 108 will be built; this reporter believes the number will be closer to 60; the original number was 251) in their surveillance role. On paper, 40 BAMS UAVs (down from the estimated 50 of several years ago) will help extend the ISR range of the P-8. BAMS is envisioned as being operated from land, from aboard an airborne P-8, and autonomously using onboard computing and satlinks. The current favorite being tested in this role of the PREDATOR-B (“Mariner”)...

Complete Article

[LonePalm]

I worked on the EW package on Guardrail about ten years ago.

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

[DCBryan1]

Are you a 33WU2?

[Vroomfondel]

ping

[xsrdx]

Army Aerial Common Sensor

[magslinger]

SONOBUOY PING!

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[DesScorp]

UAV's are going to take over a lot of those boring, repetitive military jobs....long range maritime surveillance is an ideal choice to hand to a UAV. One day we might even have UAV's big enough to do AWACS patrol for us....why go up in an airliner with a radar dish for 12 hours at a time when you can send the UAV up and monitor things back in an office or trailer on the ground?

I think we're seeing the beginning of the end of the era of manned aircraft dominance.