The SteelNavy.Com Message Board: Re: Boeing Insitu RQ-21 Blackjack

The "Holy Grail" of US Navy UAV desires is to be able to operate a MALE (Medium Altitude Long Endurance) drone from a corvette sized ship. MALE drones are large enough to have the range, payload and endurance to give such a small vessel "serious" air strike and other abilities. MALE is a somewhat outdated term now. The new way of organizing UAVs is by size, with altitude and endurance as secondary factors which follow from their size. The size system is this:

https://simpleflying.com/5-categories-drones-us-military/

Under this system, Fire Scout is a Tier 4, along with the old Predator drone. The Predator drone was classified as a MALE drone "back in the day." So, Fire Scout put a MALE drone on a small ship, but because it was a helicopter, speed was compromised. The goal, and orginal attempt, was pretty much to put a Predator on a ship. DARPA developed the TERN program:

https://www.darpa.mil/research/programs/tern

As you can see from the image, they tried to figure out a VTOL Predator:

https://www.darpa.mil/news/2015/tern-continues-progress

You will also read that this program is ended. It failed. Tier 4 drones--at this point--are too big to be given useful VTOL properties. Doing so loses them the speed, range and endurance that was desired from them.

As noted above, a candidate for Fire Scout (Tier 4) replacement is now the Tier 3 Blackjack. A step down in overall abilities. Better than nothing, and as noted, actually more capable than the larger Fire Scout.

Still, if we can have a breakthrough, and get a Tier 4 sized drone onto a small ship, we probably won't even need light carriers (which, with the Mojave or similar, is what is currently capable of operating them.)

We need to be able to defeat the laws of physics to lift something that heavy while maintaining range, load and endurance. Meantime, Blackjack is pretty cool.

Previous Message

The Royal Navy took an earlier step in considering the logistical applications also within drone repertoire. This, a sort of "mini C.O.D." onboard delivery system. I have seen video of Ukrainian drones delivering ammo, medical supplies, water, and even cigarettes to groups of men in foxholes. This would be the naval equivalent, helping to facilitate the logistical needs of a dispersed fleet:

?si=SnO8JXs60OZ_Bqcd

Previous Message

The current goal of our Navy is making the vision of Distributed Fleet Architecture a reality. The more capable and numerous the air assets that we can deploy from smaller, more affordable, numerous ships, the less we are reliant on concentrated and expensive CV groups. They will still be foreseeably needed to provide a heavy punch, but much of the other capabilities that come from air power will soon be able to be deployed from other vessels, and dispersed across a larger area. Also, all the airborne assets will facilitate the networking needed to connect all these dispersed ships with greater ranged over-the-horizon linking. Smaller groups of ships will be able to operate autonomously, away from carriers. Smaller carriers will also become more practical and attractive.

Two General Atomics systems--one still embryonic, the other very much in use--are set to "converge", and could produce a new tool for our LHD/LHA platforms that would improve their usefulness as an auxiliary light carrier.

The first is the Mojave STOL system. If I am not mistaken, this is a Tier 4 (aka Group 4) drone, one size up from the Firescout :

https://www.ga-asi.com/remotely-piloted-aircraft/mojave

The second is the fairly well known Reaper, in use by the USMC as a land based system. That is Tier/Group 5:

https://www.navair.navy.mil/product/MQ-9A-Reaper

https://www.navair.navy.mil/news/Marine-Corps-MQ-9-Reapers-enhanced-advanced-payload-upgrade/Mon-03032025-1417

General Atomics has already developed a package with a STOL wing for the Reaper, which the Navy and Marines are very interested in:

https://www.ga-asi.com/remotely-piloted-aircraft/mq-9b-stol

Tier/Group 5 can be lightly armed, and have practical endurance and range. Light strikes, and strikes on vessels is within their abilities, along with the surveillance and data linking, etc which they would more routinely provide. This basically will give the USMC something approaching the AEW abilities aboard the "big deck" amphibs that it imagined many years ago with the proposed EV-22:

https://thediplomat.com/2016/06/why-the-us-gator-navy-needs-the-ev-22/

That contributes a good deal towards making the lighter carrier a practical reality.

What the Navy ultimately envisions is the naval equivalent of the current Ukraine battlefield, where drones swarm overhead providing info, and carrying out strikes. The US Navy would like to field fleets of small affordable ships with the ability to surround themselves with a swarm of drones, both in the sir and on/under the water, with multiple useful functions, and operating away from CVNs.

I love this video. Great music, and inspiring vision:

?si=1tQvg9wsPey_Z7HL

Previous Message

In that article, it is stated that cheaper smaller drones could replace them, e.g. the Boeing Insitu RQ-21 Blackjack:

Boeing Insitu RQ-21 Blackjack

There are different recovery systems, e.g. Skyhook and also a an octocoper:
Insitu Reveals Novel VTOL System For RQ-21