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The Skunk Works - Shapeshifter
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| 05 October 2005 |
By Nick Cook JDW Aerospace Consultant
London
It seems inconceivable that the entity that established itself as one of the foremost aerospace pioneers of the last half-century should end up on the sidelines of the UAV and UCAV revolution, yet, on the face of it, this is where the Skunk Works is: on the outside, looking in. For the past few years, as J-UCAS has gathered momentum, ADP officials have let it be known that the Skunk Works has not been standing still - that there are advanced UAV/UCAV concepts on the drawing board at ADP, many of which are under government consideration. A number of these may have progressed further in the 'black' world - there are persistent rumours that they have. However, it was only in June, at the Paris Air Show, that the Skunk Works/ADP was able to provide hard details of a real, live project: the Morphing UAV.
The Morphing UAV is a demonstrator for an unmanned aircraft that, in its developed form, can span intelligence-gathering and attack missions by changing its shape in flight. To date, in the high-end, sophisticated unmanned aircraft market, UAVs and UCAVs broadly fall into two camps: high- and medium-altitude long-endurance types for surveillance, and UCAVs for attack. With its ability to 'morph' from an extended-wing, loitering configuration to a squat, agile, high dash-speed platform - a transition that takes place in less than 30 seconds - the Morphing UAV allows a single vehicle to perform multiple mission profiles. To reinforce ADP's message and add weight to its conviction that the UAV/UCAV market is still in transition, and thus still open to competition, the Skunk Works' Vice President and General Manager, Frank Cappuccio, went to the Paris Air Show to convey it personally.
Cappuccio is bound by a different set of rules from most engineering management executives because of what the Skunk Works does. There are times, for example, when the US government prevents him from travelling abroad. However, Cappuccio's message in Paris was clear. "I personally believe there's going to be two or three generations of UAVs before we [the aerospace and defence industry] get it right," he told JDW in an extensive, exclusive interview.
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