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Pentagon Plans Heavy Investment in UAVs

Sgt. 1st Class Doug Sample, USA
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, March 18, 2003 - The Defense Department today unveiled a billion
dollar roadmap for unmanned aerial vehicles during the next 25 years. Plans
call for developing joint interoperable UAVs that are capable of everything
from surveillance to air strike.

"The roadmap provides those high priority investments necessary to move UAV
capability to the mainstream," said Dyke Weatherington, deputy of the UAV
Planning Task Force in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, at a DoD
press briefing today. "The potential value UAVs offer range across virtually
every mission area and capability of interest to DoD. The roadmap identifies
those key technology areas that we think are right for investment."

The Pentagon has made UAV weapon systems a priority. Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld, who strongly supports the UAV program, has pushed UAVs as
one way to transform the military.

Today, about 90 UAVs support military operations around the world, and the
department has them standing by for potential use over Iraq.

By 2010, according to the roadmap report, DoD hopes to increase its UAV
inventory to about 350. And the department plans to increase that to more
than a thousand in the outyears, according to Weatherington.

From 1991 to 1999 the Pentagon invested about $3 billion in UAV projects.
That is projected to rise to $10 billion from today through 2010, according
to the latest DoD Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Roadmap 2002-2027 report.

The Air Force's Predator UAV proved its military capability flying
reconnaissance missions in Bosnia, and was credited with taking out one of
al Qaeda's top lieutenants in Afghanistan with a Hellfire missile.

Besides Predator, the military services are developing other UAV platforms.
For example, the Air Force has another UAV called Global Hawk. The system is
completely computer-operated and can be used for long-term surveillance. The
high-flying Global Hawk currently carries photo reconnaissance equipment,
but production versions of the system will carry electronic intelligence
gathering materials. The Global Hawk can stay airborne for 32 hours.

The Army has developed the Shadow 200 tactical UAV. The Army also has the
Hunter UAV, and both are primary surveillance UAVs and relay video in real
time.

Meanwhile, the Marine Corps has developed Dragon Eye, a small, hand-launched
UAV that can give leaders a snapshot of the battlefield, and it plans to
make improvements to the Pioneer UAV developed by the Navy. The Pioneer was
used in the 1991 Gulf War.

The Navy is developing Neptune, which can drop small payloads and the
X-46/X-47, a large autonomous unmanned combat aerial vehicle that has a
34-foot wingspan. The system will be initially built for tactical
surveillance, but the Navy envisions it one day becoming a strike system.

Weatherington said that UAVs offer a unique advantage for military leaders
because they can conduct dangerous mission without the risk of human life.
UAVs will soon have the capability for reconnaissance in areas possibly
contaminated with biological or chemical agents or suppress enemy air
defenses, or provide deep strike interdiction, he said.

See this and more at http://www.defendamerica.mil

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