Go to Wikileaks.org to download a massive pile of internal documents on the planning and execution of Empire Challenge 2008, the US Joint Force Command's premier intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance exercise for coalition forces.
Much of the data may seem mundane, but there's plenty of interesting details buried throughout. I found the "daily reports" -- naturally, summarizing the daily activities -- most fascinating.
For instance, we learn the Boeing NanoSAR payload in X band maps "an area in a strip map mode at a range approximately .6 mile (1 km), at resolutions of up to 39 inches (01 meter)".
I doubt you'll ever get such detail from Boeing or the government.
It's also fascinating to read about the sheer challenge of pulling off a major exercise.
It seemed like most of the major problems got sorted by the end, but the 2,000 Empire Challenge participants had to overcome massive technical and connectivity problems. Two Boeing Scan Eagles crashed in the exercise, prompting the Royal Air Force daily briefer to observe:
Much of the data may seem mundane, but there's plenty of interesting details buried throughout. I found the "daily reports" -- naturally, summarizing the daily activities -- most fascinating.
For instance, we learn the Boeing NanoSAR payload in X band maps "an area in a strip map mode at a range approximately .6 mile (1 km), at resolutions of up to 39 inches (01 meter)".
I doubt you'll ever get such detail from Boeing or the government.
It's also fascinating to read about the sheer challenge of pulling off a major exercise.
It seemed like most of the major problems got sorted by the end, but the 2,000 Empire Challenge participants had to overcome massive technical and connectivity problems. Two Boeing Scan Eagles crashed in the exercise, prompting the Royal Air Force daily briefer to observe:
"Lesson Learned: Buy a bigger rubber band for the Scan Eagle launcher!"
This comment from another briefer on Day 5 sums it up:"Due to TigerShark camera limitations (high resolution still frame at 01 FPS with limited dissemination), the variety of UAS (Predator, Raven, Cobra, Skylark, Reaper, GoldenEye) that withdrew from EC08 in the months leading up to execution, the Coyote (CA) surrogate's difficulties in getting their video on the network, and SensorWeb/ArgonST's difficulties in correcting NightScout's data corruption problems, Scan Eagle FMV is the "only game in town", thus spotlighting the current problems of this historically extremely reliable and dependable platform."
on December 31, 2008 6:00 AM | Reply
If you read the documents listed on wikileaks you will see that the Scan Eagle launcher did in fact launch aircraft with enough "power", but instead imparted too much pitching moment (almost double what was allowable) to the aircraft causing it to nose in after launch.
A new launcher was provided later in the exercise and launched many more sucessful Scan Eagle sorties. The Scan Eagle launcher is also a low pressure pneumatic launcher and doesn't use rubber bands or bungees for power.
Tigershark was billed as having 2 FPS video according to one daily out brief
" As a note, the OGC Pilot’s TigerShark UAS is collecting MI, but is only MI in the technical sense
• More specifically, it is producing NITFs (still frame imagery standard) at a rate of 2 Hz which falls within the definition of Motion Imagery "
Good find overall, it was an interesting look at the militaries broad adoption of UAV along with FMV and GMTI being billed as a "product" and not the UAV's or aircraft themselves.
The STUAS/TierII program appears to be headed to the same NAWC China Lake Echo Range for the first military flyoff in years..
http://www.navair.navy.mil/pma263/stuav/stuas.html