Aviation Week & Space Technology
08/25/2003, page 50
David A. Fulghum
St. Louis
Boeing has test-flown a strike UAV that can be dropped from a
supersonic F/A-22
Small, Lethal and Persistent
The U.S. Air Force wants to field a 100-lb. unmanned
aircraft--launched from a stealth fighter flying at supersonic
speed--that can cruise the battlefield for a half-day or more armed
with a weapon powerful enough to disable a moving armored
vehicle.
The project is called Air Dominator, and Boeing's Phantom Works has
won the airframe technology demonstration phase of the project to
build a low-speed, high-endurance candidate aircraft. The project
is under the direction of the Air Force Research Laboratory at
Eglin AFB, Fla.
As part of the project, Boeing also will look at an aerial
refueling vehicle and a network "gateway" unmanned aircraft. Both,
in company with the armed vehicles, would be part of a small
interactive constellation of aircraft that would be launched in a
cluster from a single F/A-22.
Although the five-year program has just started, Boeing has already
flown the first prototype twice. It is a 4-ft.-long,
12-ft.-wingspan aircraft that uses advanced wing-warping techniques
for flight control. That means the wing bends to turn the aircraft
rather than using conventional flaps, ailerons and elevators. More
flights will be made over the next year with an advance version of
the miniature aircraft in a company-funded initiative.
The mature demonstrator aircraft is scheduled for first flight in
2005, said Carl Avila, Phantom Works' director of advanced tactical
missile systems. The project is part of the persistent area
dominance initiative being directed by the Air Force.
The concept of operations involves first defining a kill box or
area of influence over which a number of flying munitions would
scan the battlefield for a minimum of 12 hr.
"Those munitions would loiter there, and anything that enters that
area, if it's a hostile target, would be attacked," Avila said.
"The concept we proposed would loiter up to 48 hr."