Φαίνεται πως ο Αμερικανικό Πεντάγωνο παίρνει… ιδέες από τη Marve και θέλει να φτιάξει “aircraft carriers in the sky.” Σκάφη δηλαδή που θα “…carry, launch and recover multiple unmanned air systems for a variety of missions.”
Ο στόχος γενικά είναι να δημιουργηθούν πλατφόρμες που θα είναι πιο ευέλικτες και θα φέρνουν λιγότερους ανθρώπους σε κίνδυνο. Τα δε σημερινά μέσα “…lack the speed, range and endurance of larger aircraft.” The military transport these drones near the theater of action in order for them to conduct their missions, a long and cumbersome process.
Η λύση πιστεύεται πως είναι μια ιπτάμενη πλατφόρμα από την οποία drones θα πηγαίνουν σε κάθε σημείο της Γης και γρήγορα: “Such an approach,” λένε, “could greatly extend the range of UAS operations, enhance overall safety, and cost-effectively enable groundbreaking capabilities for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and other missions.”
Η DARPA θα το ψάξει με πολλούς τρόπους και ακόμη και δεν υπάρξει άμεσα κάτι τόσο φουτουριστικό, μπορεί ένα C-130 να μετατραπεί σχετικά γρήγορα σε drone aircraft carrier κατά τον DARPA program manager κο Dan Patt:
We want to find ways to make smaller aircraft more effective, and one promising idea is enabling existing large aircraft, with minimal modification, to become ‘aircraft carriers in the sky. We envision innovative launch and recovery concepts for new UAS designs that would couple with recent advances in small payload design and collaborative technologies.
Για την πρόταση θέλουνl:
- System-level technologies and concepts that would enable low-cost reusable small UAS platforms and airborne launch and recovery systems that would require minimal modification of existing large aircraft types. This area includes modeling and simulation as well as feasibility analysis, including substantiating preliminary data if available.
- Potentially high-payoff operational concepts and mission applications for distributed airborne capabilities and architectures, as well as relative capability and affordability compared to conventional approaches (e.g., monolithic aircraft and payloads or missile-based approaches). DARPA hopes to leverage significant investments in the area of precision relative navigation, which seeks to enable extremely coordinated flight activities among aircraft, as well as recent and ongoing development of small payloads (100 pounds or less).
- Proposed plans for achieving full-system flight demonstrations within four years, to assist in planning for a potential future DARPA program. DARPA is interested not only in what system functionality such plans could reasonably achieve within that timeframe, but also how to best demonstrate this functionality to potential users and transition partners. These notional plans should include rough order-of-magnitude (ROM) cost and schedule information, as well as interim risk reduction and demonstration events to evaluate program progress and validate system feasibility and interim capabilities.