The UAV Year in Summary-1999  

    In retrospect, 1999 will most likely be remembered as the Year of the Crashes. Probably no other year has had the number of UAV mishaps with such hiGlobal Hawk had a taxi mishap at Edwards AFB, CA, which crushed the program’s second and last EO/IR sensor in early December. Global Hawk was concluding a busy year demonstrating its military utility in a number of military exercises, the final exam portion of its 5-year-long ACTD. Its successes included flights to over 66,000 ft, endurances of over 27 hours, missions to Alaska from California, good quality imagery from each of its three sensors (EO, IR, and SAR), and compatibility with the new Common Ima.

     In retrospect, 1999 will most likely be remembered as the Year of the Crashes. Probably no other year has had the number of UAV mishaps with such high visibility. NATO lost nearly two dozen UAVs over Kosovo while conducting Operation Allied Force, and, allowing the 15 U.S. losses in this operation to be counted again, the U.S. also had some two dozen major UAV mishaps this year. Despite this notoriety, perhaps even as a benefit from it, political support and military acceptance of UAVs seemed to have strengthened by year’s end.
     The year began with the not unexpected cancellation of the RQ-3 DarkStar effort, the low observable, penetrating half of the High Altitude Endurance UAV program. The announcement was made in January, less than 4 months after the Air Force had assumed responsibility for the DarkStar/Global Hawk program from DARPA, after nearly $300 million had been invested in it.
     The following month, UAVs returned to the Persian Gulf theater for the first time since the 1990-91 Gulf War, when the Air Force deployed a RQ-1 Predator system to Kuwait to fly reconnaissance missions over Iraq as part of Operation Southern Watch, supporting U.N. sanctions. The year’s string of losses began with the loss (non-hostile) of one of these Predators early during its deployment.
     March was almost closed out accident-free, when the second-built Global Hawk crashed north of Edwards AFB, CA, the program’s first loss in 13 months of test flights. Although the results of the accident investigation were not released until December, the cause was readily determined to have been a heedless transmission on the airborne aircraft’s flight termination frequency and flights resumed within weeks. The benefit, if such, of this unplanned “test,” was the high fidelity match between the aircraft’s terminal dive performance and impact point with those predicted 2 years earlier by Ryan’s aerodynamicists.
     The first week in April saw the arrival of U.S. UAV units in Macedonia and Bosnia and their initial reconnaissance missions over Kosovo. First losses followed within the week. Over the course of the 3-month campaign, three U.S. UAV types were brought into play, accumulating the following record:

*Estimate based on maintaining a four aircraft system.
**Includes Hunter relay sorties flown to support Hunter collector sorties; all missions used relay

     NATO UAVs, including U.S. Predators based in Hungary, had been flying ceasefire compliance monitoring missions over Kosovo since the previous October (98), taking a leading role in Operation Eagle Eye. Predators flew 410 hours during 72 missions that Fall before being relieved by a German CL-289 UAV battery and subsequently other NATO UAV types. The United Kingdom’s new tactical UAV, Phoenix, which had only gone operational in December (98), flew its first combat sorties over Kosovo late in the campaign. On the last day of the campaign, a new role for UAVs, target designation for precision weapon delivery, made its NATO/U.S. debut when a podded Israeli laser designator, integrated into a Predator, illuminated a Serbian tank for an A-10, whose attack was thwarted by a combination of weather, tight rules of engagement, and the ceasefire curtain coming down (29 June). Hunters had a similar capability, but their teammates, the AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, never flew over Kosovo. But a future UAV capability had been revealed for the next contingency.
     The heavy play of UAVs over Kosovo during these three months demonstrated their ability to serve as the workhorses of reconnaissance, with at least one being airborne during half the 2088 hours of the campaign. Their heavy losses, instead of being seen as a negative, reinforced their attribute of placing zeros in the pilot MIA/KIA column whenever they went down. Their observations scored some of the more notable intelligence successes of the conflict, and every participating UAV unit took away with them a wealth of cheaply-acquired lessons learned for future contingencies. When after action reports were compiled, UAVs were consistently listed as one of the, if not the, top performers, gaining a reputation which is already being converted into new political will. How long this newly minted currency stays viable remains to be seen.
     If Kosovo was the major UAV event of the first half of the year, the long-awaited Army Tactical UAV fly-off was that of the latter half. During the 2 month period ending on 24 November, four vendors flew their products at Ft Huachuca, AZ, in a rigorous cirriculum to demonstrate their systems’ maturity. The final four were General Atomics ASI’s Prowler II, AAI’s Shadow 200, Alliant Technologies’ Outrider (developed under the earlier TUAV ACTD), and S-Tec’s Sentry. Four aircraft were lost and a fifth was damaged during landing. When the winner was announced in December, AAI and its Shadow II walked away with a $43 million LRIP contract for the first 4 systems (16 aircraft) with a follow-on potential of another $617 million.
     To close out the Year of Crashes, gery Processor (CIP). Its ACTD formally concludes in June 2000, but another EO/IR sensor will not be available until the following quarter.
     Overlooked in the publicity of the year’s military UAV successes in Kosovo were advances made in applying UAVs to civil (non-defense government) and commercial markets. Of the 20 authorizations issued by the FAA to fly UAVs in U.S. civil airspace (outside military ranges) during the year, five were for civil/commercial efforts. An example of the civil authorizations (three) was a demonstration to the U.S. Border Patrol flown near Laredo, TX, in April-May by four different UAV types. The commercial authorizations (two) are illustrated by a June demonstration flown to survey power lines. In these efforts, the long term value of the precedence set with the FAA in expanding UAV flights into civil airspace probably equals or exceeds the value of the demonstration’s substance.