US Battlefield UAVs - Hunter / Sky Owl

Hunter / Sky Owl

With UAV efforts floundering, in the late 1980s the US Congress formed the "Joint Program Office (JPO)" to consolidate UAV programs. JPO was a branch of the Naval Air Systems Command, but obtained funding directly from the office of the Secretary of Defense, at the top of the US defense hierarchy. One of the first UAV programs begun by the JPO was the "Short Range UAV" program, which in 1988 selected the Hunter UAV, which was built by Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) in cooperation with TRW.

The Hunter first flew in 1991. It had a general configuration not much different from the Pioneer, except that it was bigger and had twin engines, consisting of two 45 kW (60 hp) Moto-Guzzi piston engines arranged in on both ends of center fuselage in a "push-me-pull-you" configuration. It had a turret with a TV/FLIR imager mounted on the belly.

The original plan was to acquire 50 Hunter battlefield observation systems, with four aircraft and ground control gear in each system, for a total of $1.6 billion USD. The aircraft was given the Army designation of "BQM-155A". Initial evaluation determined that the Hunter's range was inadequate, its data link was unsatisfactory, and the aircraft was too big to fit into the transport aircraft defined in the original specification.

Despite these deficiencies, a low rate initial production (LRIP) contract for seven systems at a price of $171 million USD was placed in 1993. Further evaluation of the Hunter based on these seven systems demonstrated more shortcomings in the UAV's software, data link, and engine. As the Hunter's defects were gradually uncovered, price continued to rise, and by 1996 the Army was faced with paying over $2 billion USD for 52 Hunter systems. Hunter was cancelled. By the time of its cancellation, 20 Hunters had been lost in crashes.

The cancellation of the Hunter program did not mean that the Hunters in service were discarded, and in fact they proved surprisingly useful and were even sent on operational missions. The Hunters were employed by the US Army, Air Force, and Navy on experimental programs; provided training in the development of operational concepts for the day when a more effective UAV system was available; and evaluated use of UAVs for communications relay and electronic warfare (EW) missions.

In the spring of 1999, eight surviving Hunters, redesignated "RQ-5A", were sent to Albania to support OPERATION ALLIED FORCE, the NATO air campaign against Serbia. The Hunters were flown out of Macedonia, and were able to provide real-time video to senior officers directing ALLIED FORCE, with the video relayed through a ground station, then through a satellite to the US, and finally distributed to end users. NATO commander Wesley Clark used the video feeds and on a few occasions contacted the Hunter operations team directly. The operations team also could adjust their missions in real time in response to inputs from the ALLIED FORCE air operations headquarters.

The Hunters flew 281 sorties during ALLIED FORCE. They spotted targets such as air defense radars, artillery, and missile launchers, and usually stayed on station during attacks to perform post-strike damage assessment. The Hunters were able to operate much lower than manned aircraft, which were restricted to minimum safe operating altitudes. Two Hunters were damaged and sent back to the US for repair, one flew into a mountain, and five were lost in action, apparently shot down. The operations team received six replacements.

In fact, the Hunter has proven so useful that the Army plans to buy more of them, suggesting that reports of its death in 1996 were greatly exaggerated. In 2002, the Army performed experiments with the Hunter in which it was used to drop "Brilliant Antiarmor Munitions (BATs)", a "smart" antitank glide weapon that features an acoustic / infrared seeker, as an experiment towards introduction of a more formal armed UAV system for the Army. A test drop of four BATs performed in early October 2002 scored three direct hits on armored vehicle targets, with one of the three blowing the turret off the tank it struck.

In late March 2003, a Hunter also performed drops of a BAT derivative named "Viper Strike" that was fitted with a laser seeker, with nine drops resulting in seven hits. The Army would like to evaluate other munitions, such as the Hellfire antitank missile, on the Hunter. The Air Force is supposed to provide fixed-wing battlefield air close support for the Army, but the Army has always wanted to have air close support assets of its own, and apparently sees the armed Hunter as a way of skirting around the USAF charter.

Hunters served in the US invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003 and the subsequent occupation of the country. By the summer of 2004, the type had achieved a total of 30,000 flight hours in US Army service, not bad for an aircraft that was formally "canned". The Army is trying to find funds to buy 14 more Hunters. Since the original Moto-Guzzi engine fitted to the Hunter is no longer in production, this new batch will use a new heavy-fuel engine, and will also feature a number of other improvements.