UV Online QuadA2012: US Army examining re-engining options for RQ-7 Shadow 03 April 2012 - 22:49 by Tony Osborne in Nashville, US
The US Army is examining the potential of re-engining the RQ-7 Shadow UAV.
Officials from the US Army's UAS Project Office said the moves had been prompted by a need to increase the time between overhaul (TBO) on the RQ-7's Wankel rotary engine but also by a series of engine failures during operations in Afghanistan. Officials say heat and stresses had been affecting engine bearings and this has caused several engine failures in theatre.
A recent request for information resulted in 14 vendors offering alternative engine options.
'The response was huge, previously with the uptake from industry, we would have been lucky to get three or four interested parties,' explained Lt Col Scott Anderson, product manager for ground manouver at the UAS Project Office.
Some of the vendors included heavy fuel engines (HFE), but Jason Lucas, one of the technical chiefs involved with the Shadow, said that such an engine was likely to be discounted as the army does not feel the HFE technology is yet advanced enough.
The project office hopes that the new engine will deliver a 500 hour TBO, twice that of the current engine.
Reporters were also told of the continuing US Marine Corps programme to arm the Shadow using a classified weapon. Tests are taking place over the next year and a half and the marines hope to field field two systems in theatre at the end of that 18 months. Army officials said there was some hope that the weapon would soon be declassified allowing this to take place more easily.
In the meantime, the army's first US Army Gray Eagle UAV unit to be integrated into a Combat Aviation Brigade has been deployed to Afghanistan.
Fox Company of the 227th Aviation Regiment at Fort Hood deployed to Afghanistan at the end of March where it will be integrated as part of a combat aviation brigade (CAB). The unit will fly 12 Gray Eagles. It's the first time, a US Army UAV unit is to be fully integrated into the CAB in this manner.
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