Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Replacing the Army's Comanche Helicopter

摘要

This strategic research project explores the possibility of unmanned aerial vehicles replacing the Comanche Helicopter in its doctrinal missions. This research consolidates the aviation critical tasks required to support reconnaissance, security, and movement-to-contact missions, evaluates the capabilities of unmanned aerial vehicles, and analyzes unmanned aerial vehicles capabilities against those aviation critical tasks. This research will also consider likely future unmanned aerial vehicle capabilities as well. Though key UAV capabilities are equal to or better than similar systems in the Army's current helicopters, this analysis reveals that unmanned aerial vehicles can only perform 67% of the reconnaissance critical tasks, 50% of the security critical tasks, and 25% of the movement-to-contact critical tasks required to achieve mission success. These percentages demonstrate that unmanned aerial vehicles cannot fulfill the role of the Comanche Helicopter.