Lockheed Sea Ghost

Lockheed UCLASS
Role Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle
Manufacturer Lockheed Martin
Primary user United States Navy
Developed from Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II
RQ-170 Sentinel

The Lockheed Sea Ghost is a proposal to fulfill the United States Navy's requirement for a Unmanned Carrier-Launched Surveillance and Strike program.[1][2][3]

Design

The Sea Ghost is a UCAV design for the U.S. Navy's Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) program. It incorporates technologies from the F-35C Lightning II and RQ-170 Sentinel UAV, both other Lockheed designs. It has a bat-wing fuselage and emissions and bandwidth management for multi-spectral stealth. Lockheed claims it can reduce manpower requirements because a single operator could be able to operate multiple aircraft.[4] Lockheed had a full-scale mock-up of the design to look at fit checks when the pre-solicitation was issued. The flying wing design was chosen because it was well suited for the missions intended for the aircraft, and the company had experience with it. It is aerodynamically efficient, allows for very low signatures, is structurally simplistic, and is easy to manufacture. The Sea Ghost will use sea spray optimized stealth materials developed for the F-35. The Sea Ghost has range and endurance, but does not have the weapons payload capability of a long-range strike platform, such as the A-6 Intruder; making it carry large payloads at long ranges would affect affordability. It is made with open architecture avionics to have the ability to put new sensors or mission systems onboard over time. The Sea Ghost is made to operate autonomously, with the operator intervening if necessary.[5]

The Lockheed Sea Ghost is competing against the Northrop Grumman X-47B, the General Atomics Sea Avenger, and the Boeing Phantom Ray, or operational versions of those aircraft, in the program.[6]

Lockheed stresses the flying wing design of the Sea Ghost has the "inherent" stealth needed for the Navy to operate in future high-threat environments. They believe they have an advantage in that it is designed from the outset to be stealthy, and that the Navy has to “start out with the right shape of the aircraft” because capability improvements may not be viable if they don't. A Request for Proposals (RFP) released by the Navy for the UCLASS in early April 2014 calls for a strike and reconnaissance platform that will gain additional capabilities over time, including the ability to be refueled aerially, and to act as a tanker itself.[7]

History

On 14 August 2013, Lockheed was awarded a $15 million contract to develop the airframe of their UCLASS entry. Contracts of the same amount were awarded to Boeing, General Atomics, and Northrop Grumman for their competing designs. A competition for a final airframe design was expected after January 2014.[8]

See also

Related development
Aircraft of comparable role, configuration and era
Related lists

References

  1. ↑ "Navy UCLASS Advanced Development Program Office."
  2. ↑ "Lockheed Martin Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) air vehicle concept."
  3. ↑ "US Navy delays UCLASS draft RFP." Flightglobal, Dave Majumdar, December 12, 2012.
  4. ↑ Lockheed unveils unmanned surveillance and strike aircraft - Flightglobal.com, April 9, 2013
  5. ↑ "Lockheed unveils more information on UCLASS programme." Flight International, Dave Majumdar, 12 April 2013.
  6. ↑ One of These ‘Bots Will Be the Navy’s Next Killer Drone - Wired.com, March 27, 2013
  7. ↑ Lockheed stresses importance of ‘flying wing’ UCLASS design - Flightglobal.com, 30 April 2014
  8. ↑ US Navy Moves Ahead To Develop Unmanned Carrier Aircraft - Defensenews.com, 14 August 2013