Old to New VTOL UAS



Unmanned Aerospace Systems - Blog

by John Van Geem



During the Cold War, the Soviet Union had a rapidly growing submarine fleet that posed an ever pressing threat on the United States. As a part of the initiative to counter the Soviet Unions submarines, the U.S. Navy developed the QH-50 DASH. This DASH was the first unmanned helicopter sent out to preform and operational role in combat (Keane, 2013).  Showcasing a Gyrodyne-Prosche engine, the QH-50 mades it’s first flight in 1960, at Patuxent River NAS in Maryland (Keane, 2013). Throughout the 1960’s eight hundred of the QH-50’s where put through production (Keane, 2013). The DASH had the capability of caring Mk-44 homing torpedoes, Mark 17 depth charges, could drop flares and sonobuoys, and also participate in transport, rescue, and cargo operations (Keane, 2013). The DASH was able to be remotely piloted from a variety of platforms such as a destroyer, ground vehicle, or aircraft (Keane, 2013).
Later in the late 1960 the DASH was even fitted with a mini-gun and packages of bomblets for covert mission over Vietnam. The program was finally cancelled in 1970, with the remaining operational QH-50’s to be used as target practice (Keane, 2013). Though only lasting a decade, the DASH program helped iron out many of the systems used in unmanned arial vehicles today.
The Northrop Grumman MQ-8 Fire Scout is a prime example of what the QH-50’s legacy has lead to today. Known as 2nd generation UAS, the Navy has specific requirements in mind when putting the MQ-8 together. It needed to be a VTOL aircraft able to life up to 200lbs in payload, and at a distance of 125 niles. As it happens, MQ-8 also made it’s debut operation landing on an amphibious transport shipping off the coast of the Patuxent River in 2006. By 2011 the MQ-8 was operational in Libya and Afghanistan, serving in an ISR capacity for the U.S. Armed Forces (Donald, 2015). The Fire Scout is stilled used today, most latest example being deployed to Singapore with an advanced AN/ZPY-4(V)1 radar, and weather modes (Yeo, 2016).



References

Donald, David. (November, 2015). Fire Scout Proves Its Value in Middle East Warzones. Published byThe Convention News

Keane, J.F. (August, 2013). A Brief History of Early Unmanned Aircraft. Published by Semantic Scholar. 


Yeo, Mike (October, 2016). Littoral Combat Ship USS Coronado Arrives in Singapore - News.USNI.org, 18 October 2016

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