Say Hello to the RQ-180

Just another huge waste of money.
It would be shot down in no time.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by PlatinumShatinum


So the one F-117 that was shot down means that they were a huge waste of money? That's a hell of a record to have, thousands of combat missions, through some of the most heavily defended airspace we've flown combat aircraft through, and one shot down, and one or two damaged.

Yup, that's a huge waste of money.

reply to post by C0bzz


I agree with your concept, except the B-2 bomber has a much lower aspect ratio than a sailplane, which usually requires the larger vertical stabilizer tail volume coefficient. Vertical stabilizer, in my opinion, is really secondary. Of primary aerodynamic concern is trimming in pitch, up to higher overall lift coefficients (1.1 to 1.4) to get that max L/D (read glide ratio) for persistence on station.

The flying wing tends to require much quarter chord sweep to get area aft of the CG as possible to trim pitch. This tends to decrease the Oswald efficiency factor, and thus glide ratio. This is a topic that may be difficult to discuss in a forum, but would be happy to go into more detail if there's interest.

To put it quite simply, the aerodynamics that configure the best pure gliders, such as the German-Italian Eta, are designed with the absolutely maximum glide ratio they could squeeze out of a body, thus the conventional planform with horizontal stabilizer (not canard, nor flying wing). I've heard they can trim out at over 60:1. Again, you may notice the large vertical as well.

There is a serendipity of design for the loitering broadband LO mission around a point (circular loiter), as the threat is in the center of the orbit and you can have an unswept straight wing (such as the RQ-3A). I don't see why the study configuration presented earlier with the v-tail would not work for such a mission. If the threat is not the target, then you could "steer your spikes" through CONOPS. Low Observability is achieved through Overall System Requirements that include Geometry, Material, LPI/LPD and Mission Planning/Tactics.

This design philosophy reminds me of some comments the late Harry Hillaker made about how the old brute force of aircraft design being a thing of the past. If you wanted a higher top speed, you added more thrust. If you wanted to carry more weight, you made the aircraft larger. This single discipline minded philosophy has gone away, especially since stealth requirements have come into play. You can't leave your AIM-9 hanging in the breeze any more - you need internal bays. You can't make a massive intake and tailpipe for more thrust, because threat emitter EM waves may penetrate and reflect through the ductwork, etc. It really brings the aircraft design into a whole Systems Engineering philosophy.

Zaphod58
reply to post by PlatinumShatinum

 

So the one F-117 that was shot down means that they were a huge waste of money? That's a hell of a record to have, thousands of combat missions, through some of the most heavily defended airspace we've flown combat aircraft through, and one shot down, and one or two damaged.

Yup, that's a huge waste of money.

Not to mention that the shoot down was due to flying the exact same route each time, allegedly due to a NATO restriction. Stealth is more than just an aircraft. It is a state of mind. Fly in a straight line long enough and expect bad things to happen. Oh, and if you run in a straight line in a first person shooter game, expect to get shot in the back. ;-)

_Del_

Astr0
Northrop have been using flat panel AESA for testing aircraft to satellite high speed high bandwith communications.

That's already been in use for SATCOM for some UAV's, but it hasn't really been advertised. The tech has actually been around since the 90's. The first NG is talking about there is for the B-2 AESA specifically, which adds a capability. It isn't even really NG's first foray into the underlying technology.

A dish is frequency independent, well other than the feedhorn. That is what makes it so handy for microwave work. AESA on the other hand wouldn't be optimal in a full duplex system unless you had TX and RX panels. I can see this getting ugly in complexity, though with buckets of money, that might not be an issue. But using enough antennas to make up for a lack of a dish would probably negate stealth. It could be done, but this doesn't look like a slam dunk to me.

A dish reduces the power requirement on the transmitter, while AESA requires real amplifiers. This is probably not a big deal, but not trivial either since the heat has to be managed.

Now I can see why for first generation UAVs they just slewed a dish. Very old tech, low power, and it didn't hurt the mission much. Even the RQ-4 went that route, and it certainly didn't have any cost control issues as we eventually found out. ;-)

gariac
A dish is frequency independent, well other than the feedhorn. That is what makes it so handy for microwave work. AESA on the other hand wouldn't be optimal in a full duplex system unless you had TX and RX panels. I can see this getting ugly in complexity, though with buckets of money, that might not be an issue.

That's really not the tough part. Or rather the tough parts have been ironed out some time ago by people with buckets of money

But using enough antennas to make up for a lack of a dish would probably negate stealth. It could be done, but this doesn't look like a slam dunk to me.

It depends on the size of the array and if you're going to gimble it. The biggest draw back other than relative wattage is that an AESA array has a very narrow field of view. If you put it on gimbles to slew it around, you're negating most of the advantages. So you use multiple small arrays to cover the dorsal hemisphere. The idea is that you install them flush on the upper-surface of your aircraft which is friendly aerodynamically and for your signature. And the simple dish generally has a much larger side-lobe than an electronically steered array, so you're actually less likely to be "leaking" detectable radiation.

A dish reduces the power requirement on the transmitter, while AESA requires real amplifiers. This is probably not a big deal, but not trivial either since the heat has to be managed.

Those have traditionally been seen as the draw backs, yes. But as costs per T/R module continues to decrease, we'll see them increasingly used for the advantages. If you plan on using AESA from the get go, it's easy to use liquid cooling (fuel tank exchangers). If not, you have to find room for liquid cooling somewhere.

reply to post by _Del_

Those have traditionally been seen as the draw backs, yes. But as costs per T/R module continues to decrease, we'll see them increasingly used for the advantages. If you plan on using AESA from the get go, it's easy to use liquid cooling (fuel tank exchangers). If not, you have to find room for liquid cooling somewhere.

The F-22 goes bingo due to insufficient fuel for electronics cooling before it is actually in danger of running out of fuel. One suspects mission creep has something to do with this.

reply to post by gariac


I assure you that neither mission creep nor requirement drift has never been a part of any USAF-run program

Anyone see a connection between the rumored (black program?) RQ-4B Global Hawk "Block 50" and the RQ-180? RQ-180 certainly must use something in the RQ-4B/C ground station family.

TAGBOARD
Anyone see a connection between the rumored (black program?) RQ-4B Global Hawk "Block 50" and the RQ-180? RQ-180 certainly must use something in the RQ-4B/C ground station family.

edit on 14-12-2013 by TAGBOARD because: (no reason given)

Global Hawk funding was restored in the current budget if that means anything.

You know me...I filter rumors and just look at the facts. Now nobody said explicitly what kind of Global Hawk is back in the budget, and the DoD has been known to move money around as they see fit. Remember, we still haven't got an audit of the DoD. Remember it was Dick Cheney who requested the audit....when he was SECDEF!

I would venture that any new ISR UAV will have a wide field of view, so I think the ground stations would be a little bit different. Perhaps not like Argus or similar projects being evaluated, but I think the tunnel vision view of a Predator/Reaper is a thing of the past.

reply to post by gariac


I'm not sure how you'd package an ARGUS turret on a broadband low observable airframe. The nature of the turret (measures ~ 2 ft diameter) is it needs near 2 pi steradian field of regard. You'd need to develop a huge greenhouse/fairing to house this, then work it into the shaping that would keep it LO. Not that it can't be done as BAE Systems has packaged it nicely.

Lockheed has done a nice job with F-35 on one of it's models, but on a significantly smaller scale. I would also note the sensor is on the wrong side of the OML (bottom) to keep it hidden from threat transmitters.

reply to post by TAGBOARD


That is why I said Argus like. What Argus does is stitches together multiple cameras to appear as one camera. It is smaller than if you had one camera because the constraints on the lens are greatly reduced. The sensors are cheaper too since wafer yield is higher for smaller sensors. When I was at EG&G, we did a custom sensor where the yield was less than one good sensor per wafer.

Point and shoot cameras have incorporated field correction for years. Easily over a decade. You can use fewer elements in the lens if you fix the distortion digitally. DSLRs just expect the user to use more complicated glass because you can detect artifacts from a lot of correction, though post processing can read EXIF and do optional correction.

My point is all this trickery is old hat, being developed in the open source community then commercially.

If you watch video from Wescam type turret cams, you can see them switch from normal to infrared in flight. I would assume a modern ISR has some capability to do both at the same time. Maybe not to the same resolution. (There is a lot of intercepted satellite relayed UAV video on the dark net and in the open.) My point here is you might as well gather more intel for each leg of the pattern.

The Universal Payload Adaptor got shelved - so no U2 hot swapping the Senior Year system - which makes it even more doubtful that the new toy is an RQ-4 of any type.

There really is no love in the USAF for the RQ-4 upgrades of any type it seems. They had enough of a fight getting block 40 any where.

reply to post by Astr0


Understood, however the Global Hawk "Block 50" may have similarity in name only to the RQ-4. What is known is Northrop would be the contractor. Unverified by second reference, but have little reason to doubt my source.

reply to post by TAGBOARD


Anything Global Hawk, or related to it has a very slim chance of ever seeing the light of day anymore. The Air Force has decreed that it will go away, so it's going away.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Understood, it seems everyone agrees that the Global Hawk needs to go away.

However, the Global Hawk "Block 50" is just a cover name for a different program. Again, a rumor I have not been able to discredit.

reply to post by TAGBOARD


The Global Hawk is in the new budget. defense budget

reply to post by gariac


Interesting. One more note: the "Block 50" is not a repackaged RQ-4C (Triton), as that was a question I asked my source during the original conversation.

reply to post by TAGBOARD


Say hello to a monumental waste of tax-payer dollars! I'd rather see the B-37B. You know, the space-bomber we keep on orbit for a year or more at a time? The one that says to China and other space super-powers like France, and the civilian air patrol, watch out! The space bomber. It's the only weapon system we've designed, build and flown that actually is WORTH keeping! Who needs ANOTHER stinking worthless drone when we already have a killer space robot! if you don't get it, try looking at this, $, it's called the "Dollar" sign, as in having crap that fly's in the atmosphere is a huge waste of '$'. Aso, sending troops to a-stan for 10 years to train and equip the taliban, another big waste of '$'. Hope it starts sink in.

reply to post by tencap77


You mean the X-37b? It's not a bomber, and is also a UAV.