The Navy and Marine Corps are examining the possibility of using unmanned helicopters to ferry cargo from ships to land but have not reached a conclusion as to whether it should be part of the requirements for the program, a Navy captain said Tuesday.
Capt. Patrick Smith, the program manager for tactical unmanned aerial systems at Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR), told reporters that the possibility of evolving the existing land-based Cargo UAS program to also include ship-to-shore operations is among the initial inquiries under consideration.
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| K-MAX. Photo by Lockheed Martin |
“Is it still just all land based or is it going to be a maritime-and land-based type of operation?” Smith said in describing the approach. Smith addressed the program on the sidelines of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) conference in Washington.
The Navy and Marines developed the program under an urgent needs request several years ago and in late 2011 deployed two K-MAX unmanned helicopters to Afghanistan. Since their arrival, they have won high marks for delivering cargo to remote areas of the country while reducing the risks associated with ground convoys.
Lockheed Martin [LMT] is the prime contractor for K-MAX. The Marine Corps has stated that it wants to make the Cargo UAS program a program of record and is currently working on the requirements.
Operational K-MAX flights have been suspended since one of the aircraft crashed in June, although training flights recently resumed. The damaged K-MAX will be shipped back to the United States and no decisions have been made on whether it will be repaired, Smith said. An estimate on the cost to repair the system has not been completed, he added.
A final report on the cause of the crash is still pending. Smith said, however, that incident appears to have been caused by sling load that began swinging abnormally as it approached for a drop off, causing the “tail-up tail-down” oscillations.
Smith said NAVAIR is pouring through data to learn more about the incident and to determine if any design changes will be needed. Also being examined is whether the problem could have been resolved by an on-board pilot.
He said he expects the remaining K-MAX will be able to resume operations in the near future, but emphasized the exact timing is a decision to be made by commanders in Afghanistan.