The Air Force Times reports:-
The Taliban are surging toward you — so fast there’s no time to call in an airstrike.
You reach for your backpack and pull out your attack plane; within seconds, no more insurgents.
It may be only fantasy now, but just wait: A pint-sized unmanned bomber is on the way.
The mini remotely piloted aircraft makes its debut next month during evaluation flights at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., conducted by the Air Force Air Armament Center and U.S. Special Operations Command.
If all goes according to plan, troops on the ground — soldiers and Marines as well as airmen — will be able to reach for a teensy aircraft when a grenade launcher simply won’t do.
SOCOM and the Air Force won’t talk in depth about the project, but written specifications call for the RPA to weigh 3 to 5.5 pounds and fly up to 30 minutes at speeds as fast as 100 mph. Besides a warhead, the payload will include a video camera and a transmitter to relay images to ground forces.
The speed and weight requirements are about the same as those of the RQ-11 Raven, a hand-launched and battery-powered RPA used by Air Force security forces to scout areas they can’t patrol.
Troops will fly the bomber using a console about the size of a laptop.
Exactly how much of a punch the RPA will pack is still under wraps. The specifications don’t detail either the size or type of munitions but do state the warhead should be able stop an unarmored vehicle or foot patrol if it hits within 3 feet of the target — roughly the impact of a 40mm cannon shell or a round fired from an Advance Lightweight Grenade Launcher.
Warheads will not be dropped during the evaluation flights, but Air Force and Special Operations Command officials will see how quickly the prototypes can be unpacked and launched — ideally, it should take 30 seconds to 2 minutes — as well as how long it takes pilots to find a human-sized target while the planes are about 300 feet above the Eglin range.
In December, the Air Force and SOCOM will select up to three firms to compete for the contract, which could be awarded in 2012. There’s not date yet, though, on when you’ll have a plane in your backpack.
Cost, too, is up in the air — or at least not being talked about. The only dollar figure being offered up so far is for development: $750,000.
30 seconds to 2 minutes? That is not good at all.
At that time you have called a artillery and that area is hit under 10 seconds and the fire last exactly 60 seconds. Okay, only problem is that you can not be on civil area as example the 155mm killzone area is few hundred meters by fragments.
Air strike is actually much faster there than 2 minutes. As in US forces there is the way how different branches of the armed forces communicates.
Example in Vietnam or Korea war, there were always bombers and fighters in the air. Idea was that they are under minute from every position. And when army needed air strike, their air strike calls were directed right away directly to the pilots and you could give the exact coordinates. No middle mans to slow down the air strike. And same thing was with the artillery, what every country is designed that every army squad or platoon can call a artillery strike what hits in few seconds.
And artillery strike accuracy is about 20 meters. That is the closest what you can call your strike from your position. But better to be covered well as it is hell loose on that zone after few seconds.
The problem what US actually has is that it is going multiple attack wars around the globe. Not wars. As no one has declared the war. US is just assaulting and conquering different countries in the name of “freedom”, “democracy” and “humanitarian help”. So they can not have exactly same respond time or amount of troops as they would have in war. As media is watching very closely.
I have many RC planes, wingspan from 50cm to 1.2 meter. Very easy to get them to fly and actually control them.
And you really can get them to very small space, as you can have plane build by 4-5 pieces. Wings goes half, so you only need 25-60cx20cm size space for them. The fuselage takes then only about 50-90cm lenght of space, but if it is modular, you only need nose, middlepart and the tail. Even better if it is just two parts.
And such RC plane can carry easily extra 500-700g gear. Think about a simple CCD camera (few grams), a battery for it (not needed more than few minutes as planes are suicide bombers) and then few grams of the C4 plastic explosives with fragments. And if actually being smart, you would build a attachment to the body, so you can drop the “bomb”. That is not neither hard as you only need a attachment grabber to open. Then the “bomb” itself could be activated and explode on impact to ground. Then have a good reticle to the camera so you can even get it few meters accuracy to the target when flying on 50m or so. As RC planes usually have constant speed if you dont use motor what allows throttling. And even better if you would have a own CCD cam on the “bomb” what you can watch and trigger it manually to get it explode in the air, top of the rough terrain.
A RC plane can carry easily a size and weight of the hand grenade. And such effect area is 20 meter instant kill zone, 100 meter injuring zone. So we would be talking very bad boy. But why not throw the grenade in the first place as every soldier must get it over 30 meter and hit 2 meter zone (window) with it?
So why not use artillery and air strikes?
The US armed forces do not need media to hear about so massive hits. Media follows the artillery troops on the ground in foreign countries if there is no war. And it is not good PR at all if you use cannon to kill a mosquito.
Using a RC plane is cheap and very silent (for media, as small engines really keep so terrible noise, if not in free flight) way to kill people. Even if it is “one plane = one hit”.