A STUAS/Tier II RFP as a stocking-stuffer?

While we wait for the CSAR-X solicitation process to move forward, here's an update on the much-anticipated (read: extremely delayed) STUAS/Tier II competition from Michel Merluzeau's G2 Solutions blog.

Industry sources are hopeful that the Department of the Navy could solidify its Small Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System/Tier II Unmanned Aircraft System (STUAS/Tier II UAS) program by Christmas.

The competition -- for perhaps the last major, all-new UAS by the DOD for several years -- was actually supposed to begin last summer, but then the US Navy jumped into the formerly US Marine Corps-only program. It was delayed a year later again after the other services also decided to jump in a big way on the small UAS surveillance bandwagon. G2 Solutions writes:

In our opinion, if requirements inputs from the Marine Corps and Navy can be "normed" without too much extraneous input from the Army or Air Force then a December, 2008 or January 2009 RFP is feasible.  If more jointness is foisted upon STUAS/Tier II the system might do a number of things adequately at the expense of doing certain things superbly. In such a scenario the system might also be late to the party.

For more information about STUAS/Tier II, read my feature on the STUAS competition published in Flight International about five months ago.