By, Jen Judson, Defense News

WASHINGTON — Army aviation special operators want new unmanned aircraft systems that can carry multiple sensors to collect vital intelligence from the battlefield and they’re working with the Army to achieve the capability, Brig. Gen. Erik Peterson, the Army Special Operations Aviation Command commander, said Thursday.

Peterson, speaking at the Association of the US Army’s aviation symposium in Arlington, Virginia, described the state of the fleet of special operations UAS as a “dog breakfast” of more than 300 air vehicles beyond the standard Army UAS.

Organic to the command is one company of MQ-1C Gray Eagle UAS platoons. Gray Eagle is the largest Army unmanned system in the fleet. These special operations platoons of four UAS each are and will be continuously deployed until at least fiscal year 2017.

Then special operations has smaller UAS such as the Raven, which is an Army program of record, but it also has several non-programs of record systems quickly procured in response to joint urgent operational needs statements and other various requests.

Listed on a slide shown during Peterson’s presentation, Army special operations has oversight of 12 Gray Eagles, 32 Shadows, 224 Ravens, seven Pumas, 15 Arrowlites, 40 Instant Eyes, two Silver Foxes and one Maveric. The last four UAS are not Army programs of record.

The UAS are “very valuable,” Peterson said, “but obviously present challenges when they are not programs of record.”

Given the petting zoo of UAS that Army special operators are using, a multi-intelligence UAS would be ideal in the future; one UAS carrying multiple kinds of sensors with different capabilities.

Special operators “need a true multi-int capability in group IV systems and we are working with both the Army and Special Operations Command to achieve that capability,” Peterson said. Group IV UAS consist of larger UAS like the Gray Eagle. On another presentation slide, the desire for multi-intelligence UAS extends to the smaller Group III category in which Shadow UAS fit as well.

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Courtesy C4ISR & Networks

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In his conference remarks, Lundy said that when the Army does buy or develop new drones, a key requirement should be the ability to take off and land without a runway.

“I don’t want to be on runways anymore” Lundy said. A future drone in the same class as the Gray Eagle, he said, “needs to have a VTOL capability. We’ve got to be able to push it forward with units. It can’t be sitting at an airfield four hours away.” He also listed two other key requirements: “It’s got to be survivable, so we’ve go to reduce the signature. And we’ve got to reduce how many people it takes to run it.” A future Gray Eagle replacement, he added, would need to carry similar payloads and have similar range. “I’m not real concerned about the speed,” Lundy said. “Those are the key requirements – both for our large UAS and for our tactical.”

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