The US Defence Budget for 2012 requests 1,395 new UAS, down from the 1,545 that Congress approved for 2010.
The new budget asks for $1.7 billion for the high-altitude Global Hawk class – the same as in 2010 . However there is a significant increase in money for Predator-class drones, like the Air Force Reaper and the Army’s version, the Gray Eagle. Spending will be $2.5 billion next year, up from the current $1.7 billion. But smaller UAS, such as the Army’s 3-foot, hand-launched Raven , are being cut. The Pentagon wants only $600 million for those low-flying, low-endurance UAS, compared to the $1.2 billion in the last funding bill.
The US Air Force has slashed planned orders for one variant of the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk by half to fix problems on another version of the high-altitude, long-endurance UAS. The Block 40 programme, featuring a synthetic aperture radar, has been reduced from 22 to 11 aircraft.
“We are using the savings to make capability improvements in the Block 30 in the area of electro-optical/infrared payload” says Major Gen Alfred Flowers, the air force’s deputy assistant secretary for budget
Each version of the RQ-4 has faced cost increases and performance problems. The Block 30’s EO/IR payload is the Raytheon enhanced integrated sensor system. Last March, flight tests revealed “significant” deficiencies with the sensor’s image quality, according to the latest annual report published by the Pentagon’s office of test and evaluation. Consequently, the air force deferred some capabilities, including ground moving target detection, sensor resolution quality and imagery-derived target geo-location for the Block 20 and Block 30 variants, the report said.
The new decision is bad news for the Block 40 variant, which also carries the Northrop Grumman/Raytheon multi-platform technology insertion programme radar. Both the Block 40 and the Northrop E-8C joint surveillance target attack radar system aircraft perform a similar mission – detecting targets moving on the ground. The USAF decided that 11 Block 40s providing two combat air patrols, as well as the E-8C fleet, “is sufficient to meet our requirements,” says Marilyn Thomas, principle deputy air force controller.
The fiscal 2012 budget requests three Global Hawk Block 30 aircraft at $485 million and continues Air Force research at $423.5 million, with another $549 million requested for the Navy’s Broad Area Maritime Surveillance version. The proposal also increases production of Reaper UAS at General Atomics to 48 per year, the maximum rate the factory can handle for Air Force purchases, and 36 Gray Eagle variants per year for the Army. USAF plans to buy 396 aircraft, and the fiscal 2012 request is for nearly $1.1 billion. The Army request is $806 million.