LCAATs And Kittens: Exploring The Promise Of Attritable UAVs

摘要

Manned-unmanned teaming is the future of air combat, and maybe not so far away. The next generation of manned fighters—Next Generation Air Dominance in the U.S.; Future Combat Air System in France, Germany and Spain; and Team Tempest by Italy, Sweden and the UK—may not be defined until the end of the decade. In the meantime, a new class of reusable unmanned aircraft is being defined to supplement the sensors and weapons available to existing manned fighters and to operate independently. Tempest’s LANCA initiative has the Project Mosquito technology demonstrator. FCAS demonstrated in 2018 a group of Airbus- built Do-DT25 target drones controlled by a mission group commander in a command-and-control aircraft. In the U.S., the Air Force has completed four flights of the Kratos XQ-58A Valkyrie under the Low-Cost Attritable Aircraft Technology (LCAAT) program.