Expendable Remotely Piloted Vehicles for Strategic Offensive ...

Aircraft Flight PerformanceAircraft flight performance in normal situations is an advantage for allmanned and unmanned aircraft. Today’s current systems perform whattheir designers intended them to do, and they do so remarkably well. Withadvanced research into aerospace technologies, future systems are likelyto demonstrate even greater improvements in flight performance. This isnot to say major developmental problems will not occur nor that maintenancerequirements will be trivial. Design and development challengeswill always be present in the pursuit of better flight performances formanned as well as unmanned systems.It is areas of exceptional conditions that distinguish the diff e re n ttypes of vehicles from one another. For example, in hazardous, boring,or fatiguing conditions (ranked in a previous section), the perf o rm a n c eadvantage goes to UAVs. For emergency or unforeseen conditions (to beranked in a later section), the perf o rmance advantage goes to manneda i rc r a f t .Relative Ranks for Aircraft Flight Performance AreaManned AircraftCruise MissilesReusable Remotely Piloted VehiclesExpendable Remotely Piloted Vehicles●●●●ReliabilityAs with flight perf o rmance, reliability is an area of advantage acro s sthe diff e rent types of manned and unmanned aircraft. Te c h n o l o g i c a ladvances in airframe materials, propulsion systems, avionics, fuels,sensors, and other equipment have made every modern US aerial vehiclevery reliable. This is not to say aircraft problems and losses do noto c c u r. Even the highly advanced and extensively maintained B-2 experienceda serious in-flight emergency when all cockpit displays wentb l a n k . 6 1Manned and reusable unmanned systems require maintenance, logistics,and other support in order to operate at optimum levels of performancecapability. However, the US military effectively meets these requirementsin order to maintain a consistently high level of mission readiness.The performances of manned aircraft, RPVs, and cruise missiles duringthe Gulf War have shown this area to be an advantage for all these airpowerassets. For example, Pioneer, Pointer, and ex-drone UAVs flew 522missions during Desert Storm compiling 1,640.9 hours of flight and sufferingonly one loss. 62 While reliability remains high for all US aerial vehicles,some require more support (particularly in the area of systems) thanothers in order to achieve and maintain it.55