By Ann Roosevelt
The Army’s preparing to deploy the Quick Reaction Capability (QRC) 2 to Afghanistan in the fall–with Hellfire weapons, service officials said.
“The equipment has already been stationed,” Col. Gregory Gonzalez, project manager, Unmanned Aircraft Systems, said in a media roundtable at the recent AUVSI conference in Denver.
The major difference between the two capabilities will be that the QRC Grey Eagles will be armed with Hellfire missiles. QRC1 had no weapons.
“We did a limited user test with the QRC soldiers and equipment out at the National Training Center in the May-June time frame, “Gonzalez said. “Their success there is the basis for our ability to pack up that equipment and provide it to the unit.”
The QRC 1–one platoon of four aircraft–was deployed to Iraq in August 2009.
“They performed very, very well in theater, supporting active division operations, having flown to date over 5,000 flight hours,” Gonzalez said.
What the office is learning about the operations in theater is helping to finalize technologies that will be put into the program of record.
The extended range-multipurpose unmanned aircraft system is now officially known as Grey Eagle, named as are all Army aircraft after a native American tribe or chief. Examples would be Apache, Black Hawk and Kiowa.
The Air Force, in charge of such things, approved the name in mid-August, some months after it was submitted.
Gonzalez said he hopes this clears up some confusion about the aircraft, which was known as Sky Warrior by its prime contractor General Atomics Aeronautical Systems and ERMP by the Army. Now the program of record is called Grey Eagle.
UAS roles, to include that of Grey Eagle, continue to concentrate on persistent surveillance, security, command and control communications relay, and only the Grey Eagle now has an attack role, Col. Robert Sowa, Army Training and Doctrine Command Capabilities Manager for Unmanned Aircraft Systems, said.
Sowa said Grey Eagle is the only system the Army wants to put weapons on right now. “That said, we’re certainly looking at the potential and we have the capability to weaponize other systems.”
The Army has been looking at lighter weapon systems for some time, though it won’t happen soon, said Tim Owings, deputy project manager for the Army’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Program Executive Office Aviation. “Current systems require us to take quite a hit on endurance, so obviously if we could get some lethal capability without taking a hit on endurance that would be a big movement forward.”
Gonzalez said the office has had “great success” with the integration of the Hellfire missile on Grey Eagle.
The most recent Hellfire limited user test by soldiers who will deploy with the Grey Eagles in QRC 2 was successful in eight of eight shots at the National Training Center. Six of those shots were lased by an on-board laser designator on the aircraft, which fired the missiles. The last two shots used the laser designator on Grey Eagle to direct Hellfire missiles on an Apache helicopter–also direct hits.
Prior to that, Hellfire integration was tested in the fall of 2009 at China Lake. At that time there were nine of 10 hits. The one miss was an extremely difficult shot at a target moving directly below the aircraft, moving in a perpendicular fashion.
“It’s been a very successful integration effort,” Gonzalez said.