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Defense and Security Intelligence and Analysis: IHS Jane's

Industry to compete for US Army UAS upgrades

By Daniel Wasserbly

2/6/2013

The US Army is bidding out work to upgrade its existing tactical unmanned aerial system (UAS) fleet as it looks towards future operations.

Planners with the Army are considering a variety of factors as they seek to improve their aircraft following counterinsurgency campaigns that might not be indicative of future operations.

Colonel Timothy Baxter, the army's project manager for UAS, told reporters on 4 February that efforts to revisit the service's unmanned platforms would almost certainly include "a return to mobile-type operations" as opposed to operating UAS mainly from large forward operating bases (FOBs).

He said: "We've been kind of FOB-centric in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past 10 years or so, so really instilling an expeditionary or mobile operations mind-set with our UAS is going to be our focus as we develop our strategic plans for the future and our five-year plan for product improvements across the board."

Accordingly, the project office "has been aggressively pushing our unmanned aircraft system stakeholders to really do a critical review of our UAS base philosophies within the army", said Col Baxter.

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The US Army's RQ-7B Shadow aircraft have suffered a higher than average engine failure rate in Afghanistan, often attributed to the region's 'hot and high' flying conditions.
The US Army's RQ-7B Shadow aircraft have suffered a higher than average engine failure rate in Afghanistan, often attributed to the region's 'hot and high' flying conditions.(IHS/Gareth Jennings)

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