Expendable Remotely Piloted Vehicles for Strategic Offensive ...

Fuel SavingsFuel savings is an area disadvantageous for manned aircraft and advantageousfor unmanned means. The GAO made a comparison on fuelconsumption of an F-4 and a UAV for the same mission and found the following:The F-4 consumed 460,000 gallons of fuel compared to the UAV’sconsumption of 2,280 gallons. 32 Manned aircraft require considerableamounts of fuel for sustained combat operations. This area is often overlookedin importance, as indicated in the Gulf War Air Power Survey:A dozen airfields had to take air refueling tankers, mostly KC-135s. No otheraspect of CENTAF’s early planning fell so far short of what combat operationsrequired. The planners at Shaw had failed to estimate how dependent air operationswould be on air refueling, given the distances in theater. They had calledfor sixty-eight tankers; in the end combat operations required over 230. 33Relative Ranks for Fuel Savings AreaManned AircraftCruise MissilesReusable Remotely Piloted VehiclesExpendable Remotely Piloted Vehicles◦●●●Small and Less Visible SilhouetteSmall and less visible silhouette is an area in which UAVs have greaterdesign potential over manned systems. The first Firebee prototype hadstealth characteristics in 1960 that future aircraft designers would continueto use.It is interesting to note that this early RPV was to be designed with low radarreflectivityin mind, a very important aspect of covert flying . . . Experimentswith scale models had shown that radar reflectivity could be reduced in a numberof ways, including the introduction of a screen of mesh wire over the intakes,coating the nose-section with non-conductive paint and attaching asheet of radar absorbent material to each side of the fuselage. These measureswere successfully applied to full-scale versions of the RPV. 34The design flexibility of UAVs offers many possibilities for smaller radarcross sections as well as daytime operating advantages over current systemssuch as the F-117 and the B-2. “Design freedom allowed by eliminatingthe pilot will permit the radar cross section of UCAVs to be reducedby one-fourth and effectively reduce the enemy’s area of radar coverage byone-sixteenth.” 35Manned aircraft, like the F-117 and B-2, have stealth technology tominimize radar reflections. The performance of the F-117 in the Gulf Warproves the value of this technology; however, its missions were limited tonighttime operations. “High visibility and distinctive shapes are a majorlimitation of the F-117, F-22, and, in particular, the large, black B-2bomber.” 36 During a bombing run (the most dangerous portion of a B-2’s47