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DOD launches swarming drone in test of C-130 "drone mothership" concept:
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has been conducting research into a number of types of swarming drones that could be used on the battlefield. The latest of these is the "Gremlins" program—an effort to build relatively low-cost unmanned aircraft that can be launched from a "mothership" transport aircraft and then be recovered by the mothership after their mission is complete.
This past week, the Defense Department conducted the first airborne launch test for the Dynetics X-61A Gremlins Air Vehicle, a jet-powered drone that can be launched from the rotary weapons bays of the B-1 and B-52, from wing pylons, or from a C-130—and then recovered by a C-130 equipped with a docking cable and a crane-like recovery arm.
The first flight of the X-61A took place in November, but the test this week—at the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah—was the first air launch of the drone. While the 101-minute flight was successful, the parachute system intended to allow for a soft ground landing failed, and the drone was destroyed in the unexpected hard landing that followed.
[...] The first recovery test will come sometime this spring. By the end of the year, the program aims to launch and recover four Gremlins within 30 minutes.
Also at MIT Technology Review
(Score: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Sunday February 02 2020, @02:12PM (6 children)
Something about the word "swarming" makes me think small. These are fairly large drones. Watching the video, near the end, you see two people docking one of them. If scale is correct in the animation, the drones are more than ten feet long, and maybe three feet wide. These aren't going to be especially stealthy, I guess. Put four (or more) of them orbiting a suspect or target for very long, someone is going to notice them.
The "bad guys" will create a new job description for "drone spotter".
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday February 02 2020, @08:53PM (4 children)
While I can't be 100% sure I think that's kind of the point. In a large-scale invasion, you will want a decoy force of reasonably large planes to fool enemy radar into believing that the invading force is coming from somewhere, while the real attacking force is coming from somewhere else.
One of the basic principles of attack is that if you cant be perfectly stealthy, then you can create more noise somewhere else to draw attention. Even electronic warfare at the individual aircraft level assumes that if the radar can see a return, you emulate a stronger return signal and manipulate it in ways such that the enemy radar believes it is tracking the aircraft even as the perceived vs. actual positions diverge. The first line of defense from the enemy's perspective is sometimes a fuckhuge VHF radar, and if you want to sound the false alarms on those, you need big drones. Then in response the enemy might scramble some resources to intercept the threat, leaving the enemy with fewer resources to defend against the actual strikes.
Swarming has been worked on for years, as another example, here's an offerering [raytheon.com] from Raytheon. Word on the street is that underwater swarming drones have also been under development.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 02 2020, @10:32PM
Or you can slap some firepower on them and make them the real attacking force.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Monday February 03 2020, @01:28AM (2 children)
But would you want a C-130 flying orbit around a hot zone for 30 minutes while it performs the recovery, especially when people KNOW that there has to be a recovery aircraft buzzing around somewhere? You always kill the mothership. That takes the drones out of any future engagements.
Especially since the C-130 is a big slow cargo plane. Kind of hard to hide. It's not like with a top speed of 370 mph it's going to outrace even a WW2 prop-driven fighter.
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(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday February 03 2020, @06:15PM (1 child)
Spectre, Spooky, Puff the Magic Dragon, or whatever nickname it goes by, ain't afraid of much of anything. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_AC-130 [wikipedia.org]
Of course I don't know how these drone motherships will be armed, but the 130 series of gunships are beasts. They are also freaking expensive.
I suppose we all understand that this gunship, nor the drone ship, will never operate without support at hand. As part of a multi-arms force, this is the muscle, relying on more agile units to protect it from jet fighter attack, or missile attack.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_AC-130 [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Monday February 03 2020, @07:16PM
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday February 03 2020, @03:32PM
As long as the drones are small enough for at least a few of them to get sucked into the jet engines of larger aircraft, I think they will work fine.
If the drones are larger, they will need to be able to fire packages of old BYTE magazines at the jet engine intakes.
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