Navy to Deploy Up to Four Cargo Drones on an Aircraft Carrier this Year
By: Sam LaGrone
April 12, 2022 7:18 PM • Updated: April 13, 2022 6:59 PM
An unmanned vehicle component from the U.S. Navy’s Blue Water logistics Unmanned Aerial System, of the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division’s (NAWCAD) UX-24 Unmanned Test Squadron, takes off from the flight deck of Military Sealift Command’s fleet replenishment oiler USNS Joshua Humphreys (T-AO-188) while the ship was at sea in the Atlantic Ocean, on July 16, 2021. US Navy Photo
This post has been updated to include clarify comments from NAWCAD on the numbers of cargo UAVs that could deploy from a carrier later this year and to correct the test versions of the Skyways UAV that was used lasts year. They were V2.5 not V.2.2 .
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. – Logistics drones capable of carrying up to 50-pound payloads will embark on a U.S. aircraft carrier later this year to see if the unmanned aerial vehicles are practical at sea.
The test, led by the experimentation and prototyping division at the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD), is a response to Military Sealift Command and Naval Air Forces Atlantic seeking a faster way to send critical parts to warships underway.
The service has found that 90 percent of critical mission failures for systems underway can be repaired with a payload fewer than 20 pounds, which is well within the capacity of several commercial unmanned aerial systems.
“Say you have a little component on a radar, it’s broke on an Aegis-class ship. We can now use an unmanned system to go from the big deck – whether it’s an MSC ship or from the carrier – out to a small boy in a relatively short amount of time and we’re not having to reschedule and recycle a helo,” Tony Schmidt, director of rapid prototyping, experimentation and demonstration at NAWCAD, told USNI News last week at the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space symposium.
“Instead of waiting for the next day to send the helicopter, or for the next [underway replenishment], we can get that capability out literally within hours.”
https://news.usni.org/2022/04/12/navy-to-deploy-four-cargo-drones-on-an-aircraft-carrier-this-year
