Is there a place for Traditional CAS in the 21st century?

"Paul F Austin" wrote...
You're making the assumption that the FOV will remain "soda-straw". When you
consider the DAS baselined for F-35, an operator of a UAV designed to fly a
CAS mission could have the same situational awareness as a pilot on board
and _better_situational awareness than any aircraft now flying, essentially
a 4pi steradian field of regard The camera systems (from Indigo Systems
http://www.indigosystems.com/company/PR/pr_030318.html) are quite small and
would be feasible for an aircraft able to carry the ordnance in the first
place.

Looks like an interesting concept, but probably not as straightforward as you
imagine...

Assuming the system performs as advertised, I would see the major stumbling
block to be the display to the UAV operator. A "helmet sight" display would be
too narrow for situational awareness, unless it was slaved to his head
movements. However, if you could sit him inside a dome (similar to current
advanced flight simulators) and project the "stitched" images around him, it
could work. Transmitting that much data to a remote operator and processing it
in real time could be a significant problem, though.

Another problem would be to get the operator used to visualizing the world in
IR. All his threat training would have to be based on IR imagery to be useful
with his IR sensor suite. Target ID becomes a significant problem again in
terms of blue-on-blue potential.


Current generation UAVs are designed as ISR platforms rather than as UCAVs.
Expect the sensor suite to be different for a different mission. In fact,
one of the "UCAV" platforms being bruited about is a pilotless F-35. There
are a lot of issues to be resolved and development to be done before a UCAV
flies a CAS mission but there are no laws of physics that prevent it from
happening.

I agree about the laws of physics. I still see significant problems to
overcome, and those will cost significant $$. It's difficult to guess whether
the payback will be good enough to pursue the concept in earnest.


The real question is whether a remotely piloted CAS aircraft works better
than one with a man aboard. The up side of a UCAV is more fuel and ordnance
for a given airframe, reduction of pilot fatigue and manning issues not to
mention reduction in people at risk. The down side is the vulnerability of
datalinks to jamming, airspace deconfliction and failure tolerance since an
on-board pilot can compensate to a limited extent for equipment failure and
damage..

I see more vulnerability in the UCAV than just data link jamming. In a
permissive threat environment, the vulnerability issue may not be
insurmountable. However, CAS is performed by definition in an environment where
ground troops are closely engaged. With the plethora of mobile, ground-based
anti-air defenses, a UCAV is much more likely to be shot down than a piloted
airplane, simply because the operator will not be able to detect threats as
well. Add the fact that the operator doesn't have his own butt at risk, and he
is less likely to see defensive maneuvering as a dire necessity.


Once that decision is made, then the correct requirements get levied against
the new system and off you go to the procurement races.

I certainly see a future for UCAVs in general. However, I believe the CAS
mission is one of the least likely to succeed for them.