Lockheed hits all the right notes: versatile attack/reconnaissance ability, budget concerns, the need for a long-range loitering bird, all while playing out the sort-of obvious attack on a hypothetical “WMD base.” Honestly though, all they would have needed to do to sell me on this thing would be to show a 30-second clip of a self described “totally awesome transforming UAV!!”
Lockheed makes great toys, but I wasn’t really convinced of a deep, pressing need for a morphing UAV (unless of course, the UAV “morphed” into a giant bipedal robot). One, swing-wing style technology is old news (B-1, F-111, F-14)–though I admit that the folding morph looked pretty rad–two, the scenario that Lockheed ran could have been accomplished with a Global Hawk and an F-16 or F-15E Strike Eagle. Understanding that LM was shooting for the whole cost angle here–near and dear to the Air Force’s heart–it just seems like they would have made a stronger case if they were advocating Global Hawk/Predator/Reaper v2.0 instead. HT: Hot Air
