In the past 60 days, the Marine Corps has bought almost 2,000 unmanned air vehicles (UAV) from the Army and Air Force, in response to a warfighters’ urgent needs requests, a Navy official said.
In order to quickly get systems to Marines in theater, the Navy and Marine Corps leveraged preexisting systems, Capt. J.R. Brown, program manager, small tactical unmanned aerial systems (STUAS), told sister publication Defense Daily Sept. 29.
“We have close relationships with both the Army and Air Force offices. We work with each other very well. I am very proud of that relationship,” he said.
The Marine Corps has put on contract 1,993 air vehicles, Brown said. That number translates into: 13 of AAI Corp.’s [TXT] Shadow air systems, 467 of AeroVironment‘s Raven B and 135 of its Wasp UAS, Brown added.
The systems include the air vehicles and ground stations, among other things.
Each Shadow and Wasp system has four air vehicles. The Raven B system has three air vehicles, Brown said.
Each Shadow system will cost the Marine Corps $15.6 million. The total procurement cost for all 13 systems is $203 million, according to Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR).
Raven B will cost the Marine Corps $125,000 per system. The total procurement cost for 467 systems is $58.4 million.
Wasp will cost $120,000 per system. The total procurement cost for all 135 systems is $16.2 million, according to NAVAIR.
All the orders should be filled by the end of FY ’10 Brown noted.
Shadow will carry an Electro Optical Infrared payload and a laser pointer. The UAV can fly for up to six hours with a range of greater than 90km, Vic Wigfall, Shadow system integrated product team (IPT) official, told sister publication Defense Daily, in the same interview.
Shadow, also known as the Marine Corps tactical UAS (MCTUAS), is managed through the Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron (VMU).
“There is built-in training from the Army that we procure from them. They already have a logistics system in place, so we are going to be taking advantage of that,” Brown said.
There are three Marine squadrons flying Shadow, Wigfall said. “We just set up a squadron on Sept. 12, and we had one Pioneer system per squadron. Now we are going to three Shadow systems per squadron and there will be a reserve squadron standing up as well.
“Prior to flying Shadow, we were flying Pioneer. It had been in the inventory with the Marine Corps for over 20 years. We transitioned those squadrons from flying Pioneer to flying Shadow, so there was a lot of experience that was brought to the table…we didn’t start from scratch,” he said.
The Marine Corps is training with the Army at Ft. Huachuca, Ariz., Wigfall added.
Besides leveraging an existing production line for Shadow procurement, the Marine Corps is also leveraging the Army’s performance based logistics (PBL) contract, Wigfall said.
“In-theater support comes from AAI, so we have field service reps within the squadron working with AAI side by side with the Army,” he said. “In terms of proximity, we are working right across the other side of the runway.”
Wigfall added that the PBL contract is an integral part of how Shadow is supported.
“There is a pool of parts…another good news story for the Marine Corps…we leveraged that pool of parts the Army has procured and it’s managed by AAI,” he said. “If we go down for an engine, or if a launcher goes down, we can utilize those parts in that pool.”
From the time the requirement was approved, it was nine months later that the Marine Corps had a system fielded, Wigfall said.
“Within 10 months from the time we started this, we had our first system delivered, squadron trained and they were deploying,” he said.
For Wasp and Raven B, there are active duty Marine Corps training teams, Lt. Col. James Roudebush, Wasp and Raven B IPT official, told Defense Daily, in the same interview.
“We basically do mobile training teams. They will go to the units at their request to provide training at their location,” he said.
Training runs one to two weeks to complete, but typically the Marine Corps operates a one-week course, Roudebush added.
Wasp is a platoon, squad level intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) asset, Roudebush said
Wasp can carry either an EO or IR payload. It has about a 45-minute endurance and a range of three miles.
Raven B has a 90-minute endurance and six-mile range. It is a battalion level asset and can carry either an EO or IR payload. One of its IR payloads has a laser illuminator, Roudebush said.
“It will basically let the operator, working on a night optical device, see where the IR payload is looking at through his night vision goggles,” he said.
Both Wasp and Raven B are powered by battery-operated electric motors.
Because of the issue of power consumption, one concept being looked at for Wasp is called “perch and stare,” Roudebush said.
“For the battery, the largest drain is the electric motor,” he said.
What the Navy and Marine Corps are seeing in the micro world is the idea of landing the air vehicle on a rooftop or overhang, and letting it sit there while the moveable camera transmits video pictures for up to six hours, Roudebush added.
“And then just when it has enough battery power to get back home, it takes off and flies back home,” he said. “It’s that perch and stare they are looking at, because the video transfer doesn’t draw as much power on the battery. So instead of having the vehicle loiter or hover, you basically shut the engine off and let the video do the work.”
The speed at which the UAS were approved and procured couldn’t have been done without turning to the Non Developmental Item (NDI) program, Brown said.
“When it is a solution you should always take advantage of it. You basically eliminate a significant amount of the acquisition cycle. You don’t have to do R&D, you don’t have to do developmental testing. The system has already gone through operational test for its independent testing, so you eliminate all of that,” he explained.
“When the first systems come off the production line, there is a learning curve you go through. Well, we are buying into a mature system that is off a mature production line. We actually become part of the rate, which means you can get them at a less expensive price,” Brown added.
If warfighters need something even quicker…right now, for example, Brown said there are mechanisms in place to help with that.
“We have ISR services contracts. [We] reach out into industry, find the best system ready to go, and forward deploy them. We have one system forward deployed at a Marine Corps unit,” he added.
“We are not using one solution to solve a problem. We are [using] a couple of different solutions to solve a problem for the warfighter,” Brown said.