Singapore/EADS may do spy drone
by Chris Pocock
SingaporeÂ’s secretive Defence Science Organisation (DSO) is defining a new high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) platform for the dual roles of air and surface surveillance. Aviation International News has been told that talks have been held with EADS France on a possible collaboration, after talks with the U.S. government on a technology partnership foundered over the familiar issue of source code release.
The project acronym is LALEE, which stands for low-altitude long-enduring endurance, but the low is a relative term, meaning that this platformÂ’s projected cruising altitude of 60,000 feet is lower than that of satellite surveillance systems. Endurance is self-explanatory, meaning a long dwell time such as is already demonstrated by the Northrop Grumman Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle. Long-enduring is a reference to the DSOÂ’s aim that this platform should be in service for 30 years.
The first public references to LALEE were made here during Asian Aerospace two years ago by SingaporeÂ’s chief defense scientist, Prof. Lui Pao Chuen. He showed delegates attending the C4I conference a twin-boom design with (naturally) a long wing. Little has been said since, although a government minister did acknowledge last November that the LALEE was a potential E-2C Hawkeye replacement in the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF).
With UAVs being a major theme of Asian Aerospace 2004, some observers were expecting Singapore to reveal more information about the project this week. However, it seems that the DSO is not yet ready to do so. But Prof. Lui did provide some clues to government thinking in a foreword to this year’s C4I conference, held last Monday. “The rapid development in communications, sensors, information and computer technologies has created a quantum jump in the environment,” he wrote. “When synergized with precision strike weapons and unmanned air vehicles, a disruptive warfighting concept can be realized.”
However, AIN understands that the LALEE is, in fact, not a pure UAV. It is being designed with both manned and unmanned options. It may be that the Singaporeans have decided that it is practically impossible to fly an unmanned vehicle in SingaporeÂ’s restricted airspace, at least for the foreseeable future.
Unlike the Global Hawk, Predator-B and U-2, which rule todayÂ’s high-altitude skies, the LALEE is a twin-boom, twin-engine design. The two powerplants are for redundancy, but also to provide increased electrical power to the sensors. The sensor payloads would presumably be modular and interchangeable, as they are on the Global Hawk and the U-2.
In the early stages of this project, the DSO engaged maverick U.S. designer Burt Rutan as a consultant. Rutan’s company, Scaled Composites, has developed its own high-altitude, twin-boom, twin-engine design, the Proteus. It is not known whether Rutan continues to advise the DSO on the LALEE, which is somewhat larger–approximately the wingspan and fuselage length of a Boeing 737, and with an mtow of about 15 tons.
The intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) community will be watching the LALEE development with interest, since it could potentially offer an alternative to the current U.S. dominance of the HALE market, at a time when interest in these platforms is taking off around the world. For instance, at the UAV conference earlier this week, EADS InternationalÂ’s senior vice president Gen. Jean-Georges Brevot noted that France could be expected to introduce a HALE UAV between 2010 and 2015.
source -AIN
http://www.ainonline.com/Publications/asian/asian_04/d3_dronep3.html