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I like Images 6 and 7 with the ScanEagle launch alongside the Phalanx.
Pull!
pitty we could not get some more of these. Having them on the new River Class OPVs could go some way to offsetting the lack of hanger facilities for a permanently embarked helicopter.
Martin, depends on where those Rivers are being deployed. If it is somewhere down south, I suspect the winds might be too treacherous to use them too often. Scaneagles, while useful, are rather light and low powered.
Some how this reminds me of those sticks and strings biplanes flown off WWI Battleships.
http://www.adf-gallery.com.au/gallery/albums/Sopwith-1-1-2-Strutter/IWM_Q_18729.jpg
Martin,
“Having them on the new River Class OPVs could go some way to offsetting the lack of hanger facilities for a permanently embarked helicopter.”
Will DEFRA be paying, and will we be the first country to use shipborne UAS for fishery protection?
DejaVu – ref Sopwith – I trust you noted its take-off roll was not assisted by catapult and was just over one aircraft length? Clearly the RN has had the short take-off bug for a very long time. However, this is not a seaplane (later deployed aircraft were, which allowed them to land – water? – on the sea next to the ship ready to be winched aboard). Its not at all clear how this would be recovered for reuse?
Anixtu,
That would be a poacher-turned-gamekeeper story… As the origins of the gadget are in tuna spotting
Actually Anxitu, you won’t be. We’ve been using those off our corvettes for a few years now, and while in theory those are warships, guess what they do most of the time?
But we cheat.
Our waters are so placid that we can get away with a lot of marginal things that would not work elsewhere.
The USCG has also been testing them. They really need a radar, but that may be coming. One was used in a drug seizure about a year ago. Also testing the MQ-8B from a cutter.
Reminds me of this idea…
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA518429
Bays are very useful ships/empty floating boxes/modular motherships. …
Aerial version?
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/darpa-seeks-information-on-manned-uav-mothership-405897/
@ anixtu and observer
Was thinking more for APT(n) in the Caribbean or off African coast and hopefully it would be DFID paying.
A River with one of these would be a fairly cost effective way to replace a £400 million frigate with a £ 27 million helicopter for low end security tasks.
Would also be an effective contribution by the UK to EU naval task forces in the med stopping illegal migrants.
@ ST
A UAV mother ship seems like a waste of money. surely it’s better to just use UAV’s from other platforms like CV, LHD, LPH.
Adding a UAV mother ship to the fleet would just rob the budget from another platform and would not give the flexibility of UAV’s spread across the entire fleet.
Would look good on the back of a new class of small (fast) patrol ships :)
Martin,
Cost-effective for what effect? What parts of those tasks can a ScanEagle equipped River carry out, and what parts can it not? It still cannot catch or stop pirates or smugglers in 25+ knots skiffs or go-fast.
A better systemic solution might be an optionally manned RHIB (24 hour endurance, sea state 6, not really wind limited but a bit at the top end in Beaufort 8), towing an aerostat at anything up to 2,000 feet. Aerostat payload 5 kgs, 24 hour batteries.
Put whatever you want on the aerostat: camera, comms relay, both… The heavy gubbins is down below on the RHIB. Only the sensor and antenna is aloft.
@ anixtu
How often do we need to chase bad guys in RHIbs doing 25knts outside of an episode of Miami Vice?
@Anixtu
‘It still cannot catch or stop pirates or smugglers in 25+ knots skiffs or go-fast’
Yes, unless Scan-Eagle comes with a sharp-shooter hanging off the side to take out an engine then it’s not quite going to do the job.
@RT
Check out the Selex hyperspectral imager they’re considering putting on the HAV304 for the MoD trials this year.
Italian division design, meant for agricultural and science satellite work.
Earlier models already aloft can measure the amount of protein in maize crops at orbital altitudes amongst other tricks…
Martin,
I didn’t mention RHIBs.
A month ago: http://news.sky.com/story/1387059/navy-snipers-shoot-out-drug-boats-engines
Other occasions: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=royal+navy+intercept+%22go+fast%22
Pirates.
@Martin & RT
RPAS and aerostats can’t shoot out the engine of a fast moving small craft, nor can they replicate a helicopter’s ability to:
My ship’s helo was called on to perform all of these activities during a single deployment in the West Indies. It was also involved in several ASW and ASuW trials and exercise serials with own and other regional forces at AUTEC and elsewhere.
And what it does do is allow you early warning to preposition a slow arse ship in a position across the contact’s likely route.
It’s not ideal I know, a helo is much much more flexible, but sometimes you simply don’t have much of a choice. It’s scan eagle or nothing, especially for ships <1,000 tons
@ observer
My point exactly. I would love to have more frigates but we are not going to get them. So it’s a river with scan eagle or nothing in many cases. I would much rather have seen the rivers completed with hangers but it’s not going to happen. We have to make the best of what we got.
Yep, this two pound radar is already old hat:
http://media.defenceindustrydaily.com/images/ELEC_NanoSAR_on_ScanEagle.jpg
But this boat is well under 1000 in displacement
http://media.defenceindustrydaily.com/images/AIR_UAV_ScanEagle_Small_Craft_Recovery_lg.jpg
Which is quite useful if you put the launch mechanism on a Bay on”serial fire”, have many of them up simultaneously to provide targeting for RM on a dispersed operation over a wide area, and still recover them at their extreme ranges.
Maybe a nice Miami Vice cigarette boat with an RWS?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwppqKQslzQ
Martin,
“So it’s a river with scan eagle or nothing in many cases.”
If the available assets cannot adequately perform the required task, save operating costs and do nothing. Don’t waste funds investing in assets that can’t quite do the job either.
Agree with Anixtu. The only possible motive for throwing good money down such a toilet is political, and whether the politician in question wears a uniform or sits in parliament is irrelevant. Such equipment might meet a perceived need to acquire some sort of flag-waving, dick-swinging capability that will let us play in certain playgrounds internationally. Or it might be used to justify cuts to manned platforms domestically by using the Type 45 ‘super technology’ argument to explain why a much better manned platform (and the ship to operate it) weren’t bought instead. Either way the nation loses out and risks getting involved in situations where our gobby “punch above our weight” ambitions write cheques that our real-world, wheezing, flabby gut bodies can’t cash.
Changing the subject…
UAV motherships using (relatively cheap) MOTS UCAV designs will be the poor man’s aircraft carrier in the future, just like 8″ gunned cruisers were the poor man’s battleship during the dreadnought age.
I am very intrigued by the concept design Swimming Trunks linked above (link repeated below). Their launch solution strikes me as very workable and highly flexible. The idea of VLS or missile silo launched UAVs is not new, although most of these ideas treat the UAVs as expendable munitions, which makes it more desirable to use cheap and simple craft to control costs. The concept design makes use of what you might call breech-loading Soviet-style launch tubes mounted through the bows, fed by a warehouse-sized magazine of hundreds of UAVs below decks. One can imagine the combinations of aircraft type and payload that can be assembled, Lego-style, before being rammed up the tube and shot into the air. And that type of onboard assembly process was perfected decades ago with the likes of Sea Slug and Terrier.
A design like this might even be the next carrier that countries like Italy or Brazil operate. Or even the UK…
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA518429
Two recent developments of interest on the Scan Eagle front:
https://news.usni.org/2016/05/25/insitu-introducing-scaneagle-maritime-surveillance-sensor-expeditionary-launcher
FLARES is a quadcopter that allows Scan Eagle to deploy and retrieve from a negligible footprint – they talk about the back of a pick-up, I immediately started thinking of an ORC or a submarine. Although the sub would have to surface, it would have the advantage over some of the tube-launched UAVs of better endurance and reusability on long patrols.
ViDAR is a baby Gorgon Stare for broad-area surveillance at a range of 10 miles – they talk about covering 1000 square miles per hour, using software to home in on things that aren’t sea. Could be great for fisheries patrol and finding lifeboats etc as well as more sneaky missions.