בכתבה מאת ברברה אופל-רום שתתפרסם ביום שני, נחשף כלי אספקה בשם "פיל מעופף", המפותח עבור מפא"ת על ידי אלביט.
Israel’s Ministry of Defense is working with Elbit Systems to develop an unmanned cargo plane that can carry up to one metric ton of supplies to troops in dangerous areas. Launched in recent weeks by the MoD’s Defense Research & Development Directorate (Mafat), the previously unpublicized, multiyear contract calls for the Haifa, Israel based company to develop multiple prototypes of the unmanned heavy haulers, dubbed Flying Elephants. Sources here described the Flying Elephant as a huge, slow, self takeoff and landing “pallet carrier” that would fly through high winds and land in austere, unpaved areas. It will be designed for maximum safety, stability and carrying capacity, the sources said, but with limited range given the close proximity of most warfighting theaters where Israel is likely to deploy large numbers of ground-maneuvering forces. Future versions of the Flying Elephant may be configured for medical evacuation missions, with ground troops uploading severe casualties for the return flight home, sources said. “The intensifying threat from rockets and missiles of all types is driving changes in the way we employ existing assets, as well as the requirements shaping our future force,” said a general officer on the Israel Defense Force (IDF) general staff. “Certainly, unmanned alternatives will be needed for scenarios that expose aircrews [of C-130 cargo planes and utility helicopters] to exceedingly high risks.”
A former Mafat official said technology developers here had been studying unmanned aerial supply options for nearly a decade, but that carrying capacity had always been limited to a few hundred kilograms. “The concept has been around for a while, but it’s never been done on the scale we’re looking at,” he said. Elbit’s Flying Elephant concept, he said, was “compelling in its simplicity.”
He warned, however, that developing an airframe to carry such heavy payloads under MoD-specified performance parameters and cost constraints “will be challenging, to say the least.” Defense and industry sources say the development contract covers four years, with possible options for optimizing the aircraft for supporting medical evacuation missions.
Elbit would not confirm or deny involvement in the program and referred all queries to the MoD. An MoD spokesman confirmed the recently awarded development program, and estimated the first prototype should be ready for testing within two years, but declined to provide additional information. Last month, an officer in the Israel Defense Force’s (IDF’s) Logistics and Technology Branch confirmed that military specialists were working on a project with Elbit for unmanned logistics supply aircraft. He declined to discuss specifics. In general, however, the officer said aerial resupply options would be supporting elements to Israel’s ground-centric logistics strategy. “Aerial logistics, manned or unmanned,
is not part of our general doctrine,” he said. “There is no intention for every unit to receive air supply or air drops. Such options will be used only in pinpoint instances when our forces are isolated and we can’t provide a land corridor.”
He said logistics specialists in the IDF were evaluating several indigenous and U.S. solutions for emergency air drops, with an initial procurement decision likely by the end of 2012.
As for unmanned alternatives, the officer said pilotless platforms for aerial resupply and, ultimately, medical evacuation remains years away from operational use. “All the technology associated with the unmanned logistics support plane is very interesting, but there are problems with using this for medical evacuation,” he said. “With unmanned medevac, there’s a big professional dilemma about the value of extracting the wounded without an actual doctor, or leaving him in the front with medics in attendance,” the officer said. “The technology may support this, but the operational concept requires a lot more development.”New Niche Industry experts here and abroad said the Flying Elephant project, as described by sources for this report, appears to carve out a new niche in the ever-expanding unmanned mission portfolio. Like the air-dropped, ground launched or self-launching Snow- Goose CQ-10A developed by Ottawa, Canada-based MMIST Inc. for the U.S. Army and Special Operations Forces, the Flying Elephant is designed to take off and land on unprepared surfaces. But unlike the SnowGoose, which uses GPS navigation to guide its 260-kilogram payload to designated areas, the Flying Elephant will be designed to fly itself and its one-ton payload directly to and from resupply points. The developmental Flying Elephant will more than double the carrying capacity of the AirMule, a dedicated, multimission vertical-takeoff and- landing UAV in advanced flight Testing by Yavne, Israel-based Urban Aeronautics. Defense and industry sources here said that AirMule, with its sophisticated internal lift rotors and low radar signature, represents a different class of the recently expanding cargo UAV market, and it cannot be compared with the crude, propeller powered, outsized airframe envisioned for the Flying Elephant.
Similarly, U.S. and Israeli sources said, the envisioned Flying Elephant cannot compare with the U.S. Navy funded Cargo-Unmanned Aerial Systems (C-UAS), designed for Afghanistan and similar combat theaters. Firstly, the prospective Israeli system will never reach the range or the ability to hover or loiter over targets like the two rotary-wing prototypes competing for the C-UAS program.
At the same time, neither the A160T by Boeing, the K-MAX by Lockheed Martin and Kaman Aerospace, nor the envisioned Fire-X by Northrop Grumman and Bell Helicopter, come close to the cargo-carrying capacity planned for Israel’s Flying Elephant. And while the Israel Air Force operates a small squadron of one-ton carrying UAVs, the multimission Heron TP by Israel Aerospace Industries
—or the Eitan, as it is called here —is far too sophisticated and costly to be used for close range cargo-hauling missions, sources here said. “Obviously, the U.S. Marine Corps, the U.S. Army and many others are interested in viable options for support and resupply, since they’re really getting hammered by IEDs and other threats,” said Brett Davis, vice president for communications and publications at the Virginia-based Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI). “What you’re describing seems like a cross between the Snow- Goose and a number of unmanned rotary craft now in various stages of
Development and flight testing,” Davis said. “It sounds interesting; I’m not aware of anything out there that is comparable. But if you’re asking about market potential, it’s probably way too early to tell.”
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14-05-2011, 12:34
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