The Navy’s planned carrier-based unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) will help the service in a transition from manned strike aircraft to a future autonomous strike platform, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus said on Wednesday.
While the final character of the Unmanned Carrier Launched Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) is still being developed, Mabus said whatever the outcome it would likely not possess the autonomous deep strike capability into contested areas the service ultimately will require.
“What we currently think it won’t be able to do is in the current [request for proposal] we’re looking at, is to do autonomous contested strike,” Mabus told reporters following an address at the U.S Naval Academy (USNA).
“What we’re looking at UCLASS is to be the bridge between manned systems and completely autonomous unmanned strike — which will be sometime in the 2020s — to develop that program using UCLASS to get us there.”
The Navy has plans to introduce UCLASS to the fleet by 2022 to 2023
While Mabus said UCLASS might not be the penetrating strike aircraft some advocates are hoping for, the Navy will ultimately need an autonomous strike platform.
“We have to moved to unmanned. That’s the future,” he said in response to a question from an USNA midshipman.
The F/A-18E/F Super Hornet replacement program — F/A-XX...looks like it should be unmanned,” he said.
The United States Navy's Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) program is an aircraft carrier-based unmanned aerial vehicle to provide an unmanned intelligence and strike asset to the fleet. The Navy plans to arm the proposed UCLASS with weapons currently in the carrier air wing's inventory. Weapons requirements will be outlined in final proposals and will be influenced by specific proposals. With the priority of the aircraft on ISR, the airframe will accommodate a fifth-generation AESA radar. It will have multiple intelligence (multi-int) sensors to include electro-optical/infrared sensors and full-motion video cameras. The sensor suite allows for detection and tracking of targets on land or at sea. Integrating weaponry is still being planned, but will include Joint Direct Attack Munitions.
Though its primary roles will be ISR and strike, there is the potential to use it as a "flying missile magazine" to supplement the F/A-18 Super Hornet and F-35C as a type of "robotic wingman." Its weapons bay could be filled with AIM-120 AMRAAMs and be remotely operated by an E-2D Hawkeye or F-35C flight leader
An artist’s concept of a proposed Lockheed Martin UCLASS design. Lockheed Martin Image
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