Comparing the Cost-Effectiveness of Expendable Versus Reusable Small Air Vehicles
Abstract
The United States has long employed small autonomous air vehicles for a variety of missions. Examples include the ADM-141 TALD (tactical air-launched decoy) and the ADM-160MALD (miniature air-launched decoy). A well-known case is the use of the BQM-74 andADM-141 TALD on the opening night of Desert Storm in 1991 to confuse and degrade the Iraqi integrated aerial defense system (IADS) (Cohen, 1993, pp. 127131). Such small autonomous air vehicles have been used in combat missions in which they were usually not recovered. The United States has also employed a variety of small unmanned vehicles for reconnaissance purposes, such as aerial photography during the Vietnam War. Such systems in the past have required full or partial recovery. Examples include the recovery of the film pods from a reconnaissance spacecraft or the recovery of the entire system, as was the case with the Vietnam Warera Ryan Model 147 Lightning Bug (Parsch, 20022003). Systems or components have been successfully recovered on land, at sea, or midair. These past recovery approaches have been expensive, requiring the use of valuable assets such as helicopters, ships, or specialized aircraft. In addition, recovered systems have often been damaged by landing, by time in salt water, and in other scenarios and have thus not been available for ready reuse. However, more recent use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)equipped with modern flight control and navigation systems, such a RAND Corporationdeveloped aircraft designmodel1 and historical cost-weight relationships,2 as shown in Table 1.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2021
- Accession Number
- AD1123961
Entities
People
- Thomas Hamilton
Organizations
- RAND Corporation