Aircraft

US Army officials have identified a gap for a battalion-level unmanned aircraft system that could be addressed by platforms such as the Boeing/Insitu Scan Eagle or AAI Aerosonde.

In the interim, the army is fielding a family of Wasp, Puma and Raven micro-unmanned systems - all made by Aerovironment - for platoon- and company-level operations and an extended-range version of the AAI RQ-7C Shadow for brigades.

But, as their numbers grow, the army will use each of those aircraft in the short term to meet the demand at the battalion level for aerial drones that can beam streaming video, says Tim Owings, the army's deputy programme manager for UAS.

The army is also closely following the small tactical UAS/tier II competition, Owings says. The US Navy and Marine Corps are reviewing four proposals for the STUAS/Tier II contract - AAI Aerosonde Mk 4.7, Boeing/Insitu Integrator, Raytheon/Swift Engineering KillerBee-4 and the UAS Dynamics Storm UAS.

However, army officials are not likely to acquire any system simply because it was selected by the navy, Owings says, noting that the Integrator and KillerBee are possibly too large for the army's battalion-level needs.

Army officials are more interested in systems the size of the Scan Eagle and Aerosonde Mk 4, he adds.