Scaled Composites ARES - Development

Development

In 1981, the U.S. Army Aviators Jim Kreutz and Milo Burroughs requested that a study be undertaken for a Low Cost Battlefield Attack Aircraft (LCBAA), as there was a lack of adequate number of Close Air Support aircraft to support the U.S. Army operations. It was decided that a fixed-wing aircraft with excellent maneuvering capabilities at very low altitudes and resistance to stall would be necessary. Burt Rutan decided to join this study and also to design an aircraft to meet the requirements.

Burt Rutan then started a two-phase program. The first phase was the preliminary design of LCBAA while in the second phase the Long EZ aircraft was developed to serve as a technology demonstrator. The original layout suggested by this study was that of a low wing, cantilever configuration, aircraft powered by a pusher turboprop, and also suggested the aircraft be built around a 30 mm Gatling gun capable of destroying most light armored vehicles. It was decided that as much military hardware as possible would be used in the design.

After the study Burt Rutan went back to Scaled Composites and started tossing around the idea of producing such an aircraft. When a high Pentagon official promised that they would evaluate his aircraft if he built it, he began taking these ideas to the drawing board, and decided to produce a demonstrator aircraft, which was built in 1986.

By this time the aircraft had changed significantly: it had kept the low wing cantilever configuration, but now had a single Pratt & Whitney Canada JT15D-5 turbofan engine rather than the originally proposed turboprop. The reason for this was vulnerability of the propeller to debris kicked up by the nosewheel and high loads imposed on the propeller during hard maneuvering, reducing its efficiency.

A GAU-12/U 25 mm rotary barreled cannon was mounted in the aircraft to the right of the nose in a concave recess under the cockpit. The concave recess meant that when the gun was fired, exhaust gases would create pressure on the recess and push the aircraft's nose to the left. This innovative feature cancelled out the recoil of the large cannon, which tended to push the nose to the right. To prevent exhaust gases from the gun entering the engine intake and reducing engine performance, Rutan designed what is perhaps ARES' most recognizable feature, the asymmetric placing of the engine intake on the left side of the nose, directly opposite the cannon. Thrust was redirected to the centerline via a series of ducts, which also reduced the infrared signature.

After Beechcraft sold Scaled Composites back to Rutan, he decided to finish the project with the company funds. This aircraft became known as the ARES, and first flew on February 19, 1990, piloted by Scaled Composites test pilot Doug Shane. Since then it has flown more than 250 hours, and met all of its original design specifications for performance and range. In 1991 under US Air Force contract, the ARES 25 mm cannon was installed and put through its paces; during the test the cannon performed extremely well.

The ARES has since drawn a lot of attention from the U.S. Navy and Air Force, but it remains a private project. After an appearance in the movie Aces: Iron Eagle III as an Me 263 fighter, the aircraft has become a research test bed available to any one wishing to pay to test new technologies with it. The aircraft was put into storage in December 2000 at the Mojave Spaceport. After Scaled Composites became a Northrop Grumman subsidiary, ARES was removed from storage and reactivated in early 2008, taking to the skies again on March 7, 2008.