LAS VEGAS—Boeing [BA] recently completed sea testing of its unmanned version of Little Bird (H-6) in what it considers a key milestone for an aircraft it hopes to add to the options already out there for autonomously flying helicopters for carrying out cargo or intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance (ISR) missions, company executives said.
Rick Lemaster, Boeing’s director for unmanned airborne systems, said on the sidelines of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) conference here that the Little Bird carried out 14 autonomous missions off the coast of Florida, repeatedly landing and taking off the deck of a ship during seven days of testing in July. Two pilots were in the aircraft for safety during the tests but did not intervene, he said.
“This would take off, it would depart on a pre-planned mission profile and then we would command it to go land and it would come in and land,” Lemaster told
Defense Daily Monday.
The helicopter and ship each used GPS coordinates of their locations, which narrowed as the Little Bird approached, allowing it to land within an margin of error of five inches, Lemaster said.
“What we were trying to demonstrate, is that the aircraft could find the ship, then come in and land while the ship was moving,” he said.
Boeing is promoting the unmanned Little Bird as it continues to struggle with the development of the A-160T Hummingbird unmanned helicopter. While offering a potentially longer flight duration and on station capability, the Hummingbird has encountered technical problems as it moved from prototype to development.
Boeing had offered the A-160T in the Navy and Marine Corps Cargo UAS program, created in 2010 to meet an urgent requirement for ferrying supplies to Marines through the air to offset the risks associated with ground convoys. The Navy awarded dueling development contracts to Boeing and rival Lockheed Martin [LMT], which offered the unmanned converted K-MAX helicopter in partnership with Kaman Aerospace [KAMN].
Two K-MAX systems deployed to Afghanistan in November and have received high marks from Navy and Marine Corps officers. The Navy recently extended the K-MAX deployment by at least six months beyond September and has the option of keeping it there for another year.
Hummingbird’s developmental problems prompted the Navy and Marine Corps to issue a stop work order in December and in February Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) said the A-160T would not deploy to Afghanistan as planned (Defense Daily, Feb. 16, 2012).
Hummingbird recently hit another snag. The Army, which was funding the aircraft for ISR missions, canceled plans to deploy it to Afghanistan this summer by ordering a stop work in May. Debbie Rub, Boeing’s vice president and general manager for missiles and unmanned airborne systems, confirmed to Defense Daily the stop work order and suspension of the program at AUVSI on Monday.
Rub said the company will continue working through the problems with Hummingbird but added there was no timeframe for when they might be resolved. “From an engineering standpoint you want to understand the nature of your concerns and your performance. We’re on track to finish that up and then we’ll have a better perspective of that question,” she said. She added that she was confident the once the problems with Hummingbird are resolved, it would offer superior capability over the others.
In the meantime, Boeing believes the unmanned Little Bird has proven to be a viable option for rotorcraft cargo and ISR missions. Lemaster acknowledged that Boeing took a risk in choosing to offer Hummingbird instead of the more reliable Little Bird, but also saw that Hummingbird had more potential from a capability perspective.
“We were trying to move our prototype into production. We worked really hard to make it happen and in the end we didn’t,” he said.
But with Little Bird “we’ve got something that is ready now,” Lemaster said.