Flight International 09Mar2020

30 | Flight International | 3-9 March 2020 flightglobal.com

UNMANNED SYSTEMS

Cover story

GARRETT REIM LOS ANGELES

In a war with China, the Pacific region’s size will require

the US Air Force to choose between the F-35’s stealth and

personnel security – unless it can hide aircraft in plain sight

Deception

strategy

Distributing UAVs among thousands of containers aims to confuse potential adversaries

Shutterstock

F

acing precise, long-range cruise and

ballistic missile threats, as well as

bombers, from China, the US Air Force

(USAF) is rethinking the way it plans

for war in the Pacific theatre. The service is

worried that the US fighter and bomber fleet

could be destroyed on runways or aircraft car-

riers by a shower of missiles before taking off.

In response, it is eyeing a new class of un-

manned air vehicle (UAV) that could be hid-

den inside shipping containers and spread

across small islands in the western Pacific.

Should war ever come, the UAVs could be

rocket launched within a matter of hours in

massive volleys from dozens or even thou-

sands of secret sites.

At the forefront of this concept is Kratos

Defense & Security Solutions’ Deployment

Container System, a standard ISO shipping

container that will hide the company’s

stealthy XQ-58A Valkyrie. The UAV is an

early example of what the USAF calls attrita-

ble aircraft: inexpensive drones built for a

limited number of flights that the US Depart-

ment of the Treasury could afford to lose to

combat attrition in large numbers.

Kratos plans to demonstrate the launch of

its  XQ-58A from the shipping container

system by the third quarter of 2020, says Steve

Fendley, president of the company’s un-

manned systems division. The firm is still

working to finish its first example of the De-

ployment Container System, he says.

The UAV would require a maximum of

five personnel to be launched, says Fendley,

and assembling and launching the XQ-58A

will take “a very small number of hours”.

The UAV would be launched with a similar

rail and rocket-assisted take-off system that is

currently used for the XQ-58A’s flight-test pro-

gramme with the US Air Force Research Labo-

ratory (AFRL). The rail launcher, combined

with a parachute recovery system, means the

UAV would not need a runway.

The Deployment Container System is funded

via Kratos’s internal research and development

budget. The company hopes to demonstrate the

launcher to potential US Department of Defense

(DoD) customers in order to win a contract.

HIDDEN ARSENAL

The USAF appears interested and is looking for

new ways to use “deception” to throw adver-

saries off their balance, General Charles Q

Brown Jr, commander of Pacific Air Forces,

said in September 2019.

“If a 20ft [6m] container can actually con-

tain some type of weapon system and I have

1,000 20ft containers spread throughout the

region, as an adversary, which one is the one

that actually has the capability? Which one is

just empty?” he says.

Hiding weapons in this way is not a new

concept. In 2010, Russian company Kontsern

Morinformsistema-Agat unveiled the Club-K,

a cruise missile launcher, also concealed in a

shipping container. The company advertises

the weapon system secretly placed on the

back of a cargo ship, train or truck.

Brown explains that deception forces an

enemy to guess at targets, making it difficult

for the adversary to win. “I’m always looking

to make it difficult for an adversary and

decrease their confidence if they want to go to

war,” he says.

Attritable aircraft can be partnered with a

manned aircraft, as in the AFRL Loyal Wing-

man experiment, notes Brown. The UAVs can

carry weapons, sensors and electronic warfare

equipment. They can be sent after a target in

swarms, using numbers to overwhelm and

paralyse an adversary’s defences.

The XQ-58A can carry small diameter

bombs on its wings and within an internal

weapons bay. Fendley says it is hypothetical-

ly capable of firing small missiles, such as