Munition Resupply at 30000 feet
THE ABILITY TO REARM A CLOSE AIR SUPPORT AIRCRAFT—OR PERHAPS EVEN A UAV—WHILE OVER THE TACTICAL ZONE WOULD GREATLY ENHANCE THE LETHALITY OF FORWARD-DEPLOYED SOF TEAMS.
Shrinking defense budgets, combined with the increasing needs of the United States to project its military power, often on short notice throughout the world, requires the armed forces to do more with less equipment and fewer personnel. Recently, as can be seen in the case of the war against Iraq, there has been a lack of consensus among allies forcing the United States to “go it alone” when prosecuting the war against terrorism. The nations of Europe, for example, lying closer as they do to areas of turmoil such as the Middle East, are often reluctant to take hard stances against terrorists who lie within an automobile ride from their borders. As can be seen most recently with Turkey during Operation Iraqi Freedom, nations are often reluctant to promptly provide forward operating locations or to grant flyover rights for United States military aircraft lest these nations seem to be associated too closely with United States military initiatives. The delays caused by these diplomatic barriers can seriously impact United States’ combat operational planning.
What is needed therefore is a means to not only refuel U.S. military aircraft while in flight, so as to extend mission operational effectiveness, but also a means to continually reload the munitions which have been expended during combat operations without having to return to either a distant friendly nation’s ground bases, or in the case of naval airpower, to a distant aircraft carrier.
GETTING IT DONE
The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory has developed a concept of a rearming aircraft capable of reloading the wing stores of a combat aircraft while in flight. The rearming aircraft would carry a variety of munitions that could be loaded onto the host aircraft based on mission need and the air tasking order. While this is particularly an Air Force function, the benefits to special operations forces are tremendous. With small teams deployed in distance areas, sometimes their only means of heavy firepower is air support. With aerial refueling and munition rearming, a smaller number of aircraft could remain on station for longer periods of time, hitting targets of opportunity in a more timely fashion and being there to add weight to the teams when times get tough.
According to AFRL, the aerial rearmament system would consist of a rearming aircraft, a boom—where the boom is attachable to and extendible from the rearming aircraft; a weapons mount that is attachable to the host aircraft, and a weapons platform attached to the boom which is capable of positioning and orienting the munition for transfer from the boom to the weapons mount.
An interactive computer program on the rearming aircraft stores munition information, quantity, availability, and compatibility of munitions on hand with that of the host aircraft. Another computer system is envisioned that would be used to guide the transfer of the munition from the rearming aircraft to the host aircraft. The system would include a means for determining and indicating the spatial orientation— including azimuth angle, elevation angle and yaw angle of the weapons platform and indicating the distance between the weapons platform to the weapons mount. It would also be capable of sensing the status of the munition including whether it is docked, hooked and armed.
BENEFITS
Military combat aircraft require both fuel and munitions to complete their assigned missions. While the re-fueling of combat aircraft can be accomplished either while on the ground or in the air, the loading of munitions has thus far been limited to the ground. Because of this, the weapons mounts currently found on the pylons of military combat aircraft are designed specifically to be “single-shot” in function and they are re-serviced each time the aircraft lands and takes off.
Additionally, aerial rearmament would benefit the extension of airframe serviceable life of combat aircraft that is otherwise degraded each time a combat aircraft’s heavy wing loads are stressed during takeoff. With an aerial rearmament system, combat aircraft would no longer need to take off with any munition, as they can all be loaded on the aircraft while in flight.
Rearming the aircraft while in flight would also offer added advantages in terms of military intelligence in that observers on the ground would not know where a combat aircraft’s targets lie in terms of proximity to the ground base, nor what munitions would be employed against a target list. With aerial rearmament, surprise would be achieved and maintained throughout aerial combat operations.
Also worth considering is that in-flight refueling of UAVs is currently being developed. The in-flight rearmament of UAVs is also possible. ♦