Lawmakers who once asked the Navy to create a carrier-based drone that can do anything have come around to the idea of an aircraft that would be used only for one mission — for now.
The Pentagon introduced the Carrier Based Aerial Refueling System, or CBARS, with its fiscal 2017 budget request, asking for $89 million for the program to develop an unmanned aerial refueler that can take off and land on a carrier flight deck.
The Navy plans to spend about $2 billion on the program through fiscal 2021, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office.
A draft request for proposal will be released this year, the report said, and a contract award will come in fiscal 2018. The unmanned tankers are expected to get to the fleet by the mid-2020s.
The program replaces the Navy’s Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike platform, or UCLASS, which got mired in disagreements with Congress over whether the drones should have served primarily as a bomber or as a spy plane. Northrop Grumman built the X-47 as a demonstration for the carrier drone.
Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., and chairman of the House Armed Services Seapower and Project Forces Subcommittee, said that an unmanned tanker is needed “in the short-term” to extend the range of the carrier’s aircraft and reduce the stress on strike fighters.
But in the long term, he said the service has to turn its attention back to carrier-based drones that can do more.
“I continue to believe that the Navy should be developing unmanned carrier aircraft that can conduct long-range strike missions and operate in contested environments. There continues to be significant work to do to ensure that we are fully exploiting the potential of unmanned systems,” Forbes told the Washington Examiner.
Of the shift from UCLASS to CBARS, Seth Cropsey, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, said it’s not uncommon for the names of programs to change as technology develops and capabilities are added, but said the shift is “noteworthy.”
“There is a certain amount of confusion about where all of this is taking the Navy and what it all means,” he said. “That’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
The evolution, he said, could suggest that the Navy is looking to incorporate fundamental technology shifts into its new platforms and be certain about the capabilities it wants and needs before setting a program in stone.
Rear Adm. William Lescher, the deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for budget, told reporters in a briefing this year that CBARS is a better program than UCLASS because it allows the Navy to focus on one innovation at a time, in this case, the ability to land on a carrier.
“It was a much more aggressive increment of capability just to get that platform at the same time, as that was going to be the platform to develop the learning of how to operate unmanned off-the-carrier big deck,” he said.
Still, he said he expects the refuelers to have “limited strike” capabilities.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter also said that developing the carrier-landing capability with CBARS can open the door to advances and other uses of that technology.
“By focusing in the near-term on providing carrier-based aerial refueling, we’re setting the stage for a future unmanned carrier air wing,” he told the Senate Armed Services Committee in March, where he announced the new program.
“With this approach, the Navy will be able to quickly and affordably field the kinds of unmanned systems that its carrier air wings need today, while laying an important foundation for future, more capable unmanned carrier-based platforms.”
Despite the Navy’s struggle to pin down exactly how the program should look, Cropsey said Congress will ultimately support the program because it gives carriers better protection and the ability to project power over a greater range.
“This will happen. I have no doubt about that. Congress will support this. I just can’t say when,” he said. “I hope that they start doing it now because it needs to be done.”
Retired Rear Adm. Garry Hall, president of the Association for the United States Navy, said he expects the program to garner popularity on Capitol Hill because it can save in personnel costs and keep sailors out of harm’s way.
“When you have unmanned systems, it reduces the number of personnel you’re spending money on, making money more available to those who are serving. People are the largest cost and our greatest asset,” he said. “When you have unmanned systems that can go out and fly for 18 hours, it would take three-four crews to fly a refueler for that amount of time.”
Despite that, he said every new innovation will have its detractors at first.
“You’ll have naval aviators that retired 20 years ago pop up and say a man has to be in every cockpit. They’re not up to speed,” he said. “Even in Congress, some people are wary of tech, but I think it makes sense, protects service men and women and allows for greater on-station time.”
