The Royal Fleet Auxiliary is looking at the use of small drones to deliver mail drops and other supplies to ships at sea.

According to this news release:

“The Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) – whose ships and sailors have supported Royal Navy operations since 1905 with fuel, food, spare parts, ammunition and other supplies – is looking into the possibility of crewless aircraft performing some of the more routine, lighter duties. The classic image of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary is of a tanker sailing parallel with a warship and either pumping fuel into its tanks via a hose, or transferring supplies in crates and on pallets on a jackstay line slung between the two vessels. But helicopters are also used extensively to move loads around the fleet, typically in large nets carried beneath the aircraft.

During the recent Carrier Strike Group deployment supporting HMS Queen Elizabeth’s mission to the Pacific and back, supply ship RFA Fort Victoria shipped nearly 900 loads to the carrier and other ships in the task group, encompassing food and drink, general stores, spare parts, medical supplies, mail and parts for F-35 stealth fighters and Merlin and Wildcat helicopters – over 354 tonnes of supplies in all – while tanker RFA Tidespring carried out 67 ‘vertical replenishments’ as they are known. While some loads are too heavy for current small-scale drones to transport, seven out of ten resupply missions involve the transfer of loads up to 100lbs/45kg, so the head of the RFA, Commodore David Eagles, wants to see if the work is ‘dronable’.”

The US Navy’s Naval Air Systems Command is experimenting with unmanned aircraft moving relatively lightweight supplies – up to 25lbs/11kg – between ships, but over distances which could be greater than 200 miles.

“Trials over the summer successfully proved this concept by delivering a small cargo for repairs between a warship and an auxiliary of the Military Sealift Command – the US Navy’s equivalent of the RFA. Royal Marines have tested re-supply by drone both on the battlefield and on the beachhead, using autonomous systems, from Malloy Aeronautics Ltd, to ferry up to 150lbs/68kg supplies; including ammunition, blood and Bergen backpacks to troops in the line from either ships off shore or bases to the rear.”

“The RFA is looking very closely at the Military Sealift Command and the opportunities around using drones to make deliveries at sea,” said Commodore Eagles in the news release.

What about heavier items?

The Royal Navy is also looking at heavy lift drones to move payloads to ships and personnel.

According to a news release, Royal Naval Air Station Culdrose hosted the inaugural Heavy Lift Challenge, calling on drone manufacturers to showcase crewless technology which could be adapted to carry supplies and cargo to ships and personnel.

“The competition was a chance for the navy to test how it can quicken the procurement process and get off-the-shelf, readily-available tech into the hands of sailors and marines sooner. The Royal Navy and Royal Marines have already put a range of drones through their paces, demonstrating ability to lift and deliver payloads in excess of 100kgs.”

Royal Navy looking for heavy lift cargo drones

Where will this lead?

According to a presentation on the ‘Future Maritime Aviation Force’, the Royal Navy will move many capabilities currently delivered by crewed aircraft to drones.

The presentation states that “by 2030”, the Royal Navy will have:

“Added mass to the Carrier Wing with additional LIGHTNING and medium FWUAS (VIXEN)” and “will have rejuvenated the Merlin fleet, to synchronise with replacement capabilities, transferring PWAS/AEW/Data Node to VIXEN and ASW FIND to medium RWUAS (PROTEUS)”.

The text accompanying the ‘By 2030’ slide is as follows:

“We will have added mass to the Carrier Wing with additional LIGHTNING and medium FWUAS (VIXEN). We will have rejuvenated the Merlin fleet, to synchronise with replacement capabilities, transferring PWAS/AEW/Data Node to VIXEN and ASW FIND to medium RWUAS (PROTEUS). Wildcat will be augmented with additional ASUW/Littoral FIND capability, also by PROTEUS. Maritime Protector will provide complementary support where teamed with POSEIDON in the North Atlantic. Small UAS capabilities will be spirally developed to encompass EW,UW and target training support.

Successful payload and weapon integration will also be key to the success of FMAF.

In 2030, medium organic UAS will deliver most FIND in the Littoral and Maritime, teamed with crewed air for FIX/STRIKE, and complemented by Maritime Protector. ASW Merlin will regain mass with the transfer of AEW capability to an alternate platform. Together with enhanced FW in the Carrier Air Wing, Maritime Aviation will be reconstituted to match evolving peer threats.”

What will the Royal Navy’s new Vixen jets look like?

You can read more about wider plans here.

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
Twitter

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

47 COMMENTS

  1. I do think this has taken too long to get to this stage. Drone capabilities have been getting better and better. The push in the auto sector will lead to battery revolutions over the next 10 years. imo UK has fallen behind and defence investment is key to driving commercial successes. Its also obvious flight deck space needs to be a key consideration for future vessels to allow multiples of drones to operate simultaneously.

    • Its a problem that you can see in a lot of countries.
      In the XXI centuries, the armies cannot be leading in edge technologies without massive investments, from money to politicians.
      Its something that only 3 countries are doing on the planet.
      In an overall range(All spectrum of technologies) => US and China(And that’s why they have a totally different level since the last 10y)
      In a limited range => Russia

      In the other hands, countries like France or UK, are not really giving the possibility to their defense industry to create real innovations, our industrials can really do this only on their own funds.
      Its probably because in Europe we dont have the same view of the risks than US companies, and also not the same capabilities to rise huge funds.
      Or not the big support of the politicians like in China and Russia.

      When I talk about leading the edge techonologies, I dont say we cannot produce high end assets.
      I mean our industrial have generally limited funds, a small national R&D, our highend startups are the target of foreign investors (Especially from US and China).
      All of these lead to a small break innovation capability, we can follow the leaders (US and China soon), we can make some achievements, but we can rarely be at the top.

      EDIT: I’ve also forgot one of the biggest issue, the very heavy administration regulations, it take years to do some tests, just to have the right authorization.
      Its not always something justified by security or product quality:..
      By comparison, the chinese doesnt fear to make unstable tests just to work on the RETEX.

      NB: I’m sorry for all of you, I know for my bad english and its worse since I’ve dont sleep these last days, but well I try to share and participate.

      • Hi Hermes,

        I like to hear from people from other countries. I find it very interesting to hear how others see us Brits.

        Thank you for your posts and Merry Christmas.

        CR

      • We’ve had world wide destruction and melting buildings in the past… Heading towards a re-run with laser tech…we just can’t help ourselves

        • This is the story of Humankind.
          From the moment when our ancestors was able to take a rock or a piece of wood to fight others…
          Maybe the only thing older than wars are rapes…

          Imagine what we will do in the future when the battle for moons, planets, stars will begin…

          You just cant live if you see only these things.

          • Anyone watched The Expanse, a US professor recently wrote an interesting article upon how based on history that it is exactly how to expect expansion into the Solar System, with all the greed involved, will unravel. Not an encouraging thought but as we are now seeing with energy and resource shortages and how that is being exploited by powerful players political and industrial, it’s pretty much inevitable if society actually survives long enough to create a space roaming ‘civilisation’ that the same will happen… only worse.

      • Hermes, unfortunately you seem to have a warped view of innovation. The military complex historically is not a hotbed of innovation and never has been, except in extremis (times of war). Dictatorships like Russia and China produce few innovations and rely heavily on industrial espionage. The US is undoubtedly number 1 in industrial innovation, largely due to scale and the UK comfortably number two, largely due to wealth of talent and access to first class institutions.
        The uninformed media may paint this silly picture of Chinese surpascism but it is far from the truth. Just as Japanese surpascism was nonsense 30 years ago.

        • Everyone use massively industrial spying to progress, nothing new under the sun.
          Its not a spec of Russia nor China.

          Also, China’s innovations are growing since the last decade, stop looking at them as primitives. Its clearly not the case.

          As for the UK in 2nd… Its clearly not the case… Far to be…
          Fine to be proud, but better to be realist.

          Just take a look for the numbers of patent for a country (Even if its not the most accurate, its the best data).
          (Data 2020)

          1. China (x4! for the last decade, from 300K to 1.4M!!)
          2. USA (Far away from China with 285k)
          3. Japan
          4. South Korea
          5. Germany
          6. Russia
          7. India
          8. France
          9. UK

    • I agree that it has taken too long – the new carriers were conceived of back in the 1997/8 Defence review. Why are we only just thinking about COD (Carrier On-board Delivery) now?
      What did we do in the Invincible class era?
      A heavy drone may well need a quite heavy cats and traps system – how much will that cost?

      • Weren’t the QE carriers designed FBNW catapult systems in mind for future refits so as to allow for fighter wing diversification away from the F35b?
        In the interim, isn’t there potential for heavy lift VTOL/STOVL drones? They could also relieve the Merlins from their supplementary AEW role.

        • The QE carriers were originally going to be FBNW cats and traps – but that changed – deleted as a savings measure. Very short-sighted, as we are totally reliant on F-35B (or a similar successor) for the 50-odd years of hull life.

          The Merlins fitted with Crowsnest are dedicated to AEW (its not a supplementary role for those helos), and don’t need replacing by a drone – that would waste all the money spent on Merlin/Crowsnest, and invoke another spend.

  2. This is good thinking based upon good data that will save a load of money.

    now we need to execute – if there’s a few crashes we can use as a learning experience and move on.

  3. Thats it then. The next set of cuts will scrap the Fleet Solid Support ships contract. Drones will re-supply the fleet when on active service. Herman Goering reasured the Wehrmacht 6th Army at Stalingrad that the Luftwaffe would re-supply them. Look what happened

    • I don’t think so David. The ammunition, fuel, solid stores, water, all still has to be stored on a ship. This is just another RAS method alongside the traditional. The need for the shipping remains.

      • Yes must admit when this was a subject on here that it was about long range supply which struck me as pushing limits. However if it is about short range delivery between ships in a fleet or perhaps close to land then a very different craft would be desirable. Electric e-VTOL, would surely be the ideal as long as a compact and folding design can be made practical. Can see why Bae and others are exploring the potential of such designs.

    • These are replacing a role (one of several) of the Merlins on board the dry stores ships, they aren’t replacing the stores ships.

      It means HC4s will be freed up for other jobs, it isn’t occupying anyone’s role. It’s not a bad thing at all.

    • Ha. Being picky though, the Reichsmarschall assured Hitler that 6th Army could be supplied, not the army.

      Von Paulus and the other army generals knew the idea to be cobblers from the start, including the Luftwaffe General Von Richthofen commanding the assets involved.

      Hitler was influenced by the previous successful airlift of supplies to the Demyansk pocket, where much of the transport fleet was lost.

      Today, we are still cutting transport aircraft!

    • During the 70s-90s we converted around 30 ASW helicopters – obsolete Wessex and then Sea King variants – for VERTREP and SAR by removing their ASW gear. However most VERTREP is for small items – essential spares, medical supplies, xmas mail, specialist engineering equipment and tools, personnel transfers and so on, the big stuff goes over on jackstays from the RFAs. With only 55 Merlins and 28 Wildcat, and increasing demand for ASW and Tac Lift helos for the CSGs and LRGs, it makes sense to use drones for VERTREP, to leave the Merlins and Wildcats free for their primary tasks and SAR. The alternative would be to buy some extra marinised NMH for the RFAs, but helicopters take up a lot of hangar space and are costly to run and maintain for basic delivery tasks. The drones can also be used to resupply shore parties, and can even carry lightweight torpedoes or a camera or EO/IR turret for engineering inspection, self-protection or disaster relief duties.

  4. The problem will be that once it gets to DE&S to spec the requirements, they will want a gold plated solution capable of working at -20 to + 50, in sea-states 0 to 10, with a range of 500 Nautical miles and capable of carrying 500 kg.
    What they would actually need for 70 to 80% of the “small tasks”, is a £5K max and can carry 25kg over line of sight. That way, mail etc could all be delivered to the “one” RFA ship by helicopter and then just divided up and “flown by drone” to the various ships in the fleet.

    • Hi Mark,

      I couldn’t agree more. When it comes to developing the requirements there is often a lack of discipline and realism, however, to be fair there will need to be some ‘standards’ applied as these things will need to be capable of operating where the fleet does if the navy is looking to achieve the capabilities on that slide by 2030.

      The biggest challenge will be moving all of the Merlin’s back to ASW as they will need operationalised AEW drones with no ‘slack’ for off the shelf systems.

      That does not prevent DES cutting some slack on the requirements to get ‘mail’ carrying drones into service and generate frontline operational experience which needs to happen sooner rather than later if momentum is to be accelerated as it needs to be. I think it is here that the DES is entirely capable of blowing it.

      As for gold plating – that has always been an issue. I remember talking to a senior member of the Typhoon IPT back in the day and he admitted to me that the aircraft systems were ‘over’ integrated making the platform unnecessarily expensive and challenging to develop and update. Integration to integration’s sake… The same may have happened on the F-35 given it is supposed to be the ‘cheap low end’ platform to complement the F-22!

      So IF the RN / DES can get 80% drone capability into service quickly then that will be a potential game changer for defence procurement and perhaps we can avoid future fails such as the Ajax. For me it is here that the big step forward is needed – technology has a life of its own to some extent but procurement has to be worked on, developed and proper training provided. All the services have got an issue with procurement and none o fthem have really got to grips with the core problem – people not staying around long enough to see the job done!

      Anyway we’ll see if the navy has come up with a solution…

      Happy Christmas to you and yours, mate.

      Cheers CR

      • I agree if you can remove a load of small tastings like mail and small spares from the Merkin repertoire then flight hours, airframes and budgets are freed for core tasks..

  5. For a viable UAV delivery system! They would need to be a fair old size. A decent cargo capacity would require fuel. But if it is just ship to ship over a mile or so? and just the mail for the Captin!!!!. I am not going to hold my breath.

  6. The big problem with all of these Electric vehicles is that the batteries are a very big problem around managing fire. If the batteries are damaged and you get chemical mixing they become a pretty difficult fire and explosion risk to manage. The create a runaway reaction that is self igniting and realises both toxic and explosive gas clouds. The greater the battery density the greater the risk, and electric vehicles ( especially large drones) need a very great battery cell density.

    The fire from a lithium Ion battery is considered a liquid fire and needs to be managed as such. You really need a dry chemical, foam retardant or CO2, water can act as a cool agent but does not prevent the runaway reaction. So you will need more that a water fire main. And you must aways remember they are self igniting, so things like shock damage to the battery can cause it to ignite if you get chemical mixing.

    • The other issue is sheer mass, the power required for a large drone will be significant and if it needs to operate for a couple of hours to get all the supplies across, that problem gets bigger. As the batteries get bigger, you then need more power to lift the batties and bigger drone etc. Battery tech has come on a long way over recent years but I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t quiet there for this type of activity.

      Conventional fuel is probably a better option but that brings its own problems.

      • That’s a good point Steve, the increase in car range comes from increasing the density and number of cells which is extra weight to carry, so electric air vehicles will always have significant range limitations, which is fine on land for specific roles, but more problematic for using at sea, a 30knot head wind will strip the range and if you only have 60 miles in the tank….you may end up with a few drones ditching….

        Even with electric cars we will probably always have a selection of ranges as if your not really ever using a car for more that a 250 mile trip you don’t need much beyond a 40kwh battery and carrying around a 90 KWh 350 mile range battery will be wasteful.

        • Hybrid power packs.

          Big enough battery to provide power for take of and landing boost – cruise on fuel cell or AVGAS?

      • Battery swap systems are already operating in bikes at one end and trucks the other so I suspect if deemed a requirement it would be part of the equation until further progress has been made, probably available within the decade for military application, which in this case probably equates to a second gen machine by the time it becomes common place. Seems to me ICE systems would be a short life dead end accordingly and eVTOL while initially not perfect most like will have more advantages than disadvantages especially in terms of reliability and give a smoother ride to the eventual ideal in design and all round training.

  8. The development of these unmanned support systems is lagging behind and long overdue. Entirely down to poor planning and under funding.

  9. Malloy already make heavy lift drones. Granted the range is not great but adequate for ship delivery.
    They have already been trialled. Buy a batch. Get on with it, it is only by actually using these things that you see what’s really needed.
    AA

  10. Drones might not be pulling the trigger in the future but they will be involved in almost everything else.Countries which are in denial about that or don’t get their act together quickly enough will get a rude awakening.

  11. Hope I’m wrong but I could see all these AI/drones being hacked & either falling out of the sky, being captured or attacking ourselves. Russia & China seem streets ahead of us in aggresive hacking.

    • Overland I might see that as being plausible, but for resupply/cross-decking etc at sea much less so.
      I have had a better look at the Malloy site, and their t400 drone is a whopper! Great graphics on the BAE underwater systems page with a merlin on the flight pad of a T26 frigate and three (torpedo) ? Carrying drones ahead of it.
      The sort of thing I want to see right now! Perhaps we might have to wait for the new lightweight torpedo, but nonetheless.
      I still like the Kingfisher depth charge idea as an additional layer of defence or perhaps deterrence.
      AA

  12. When will we see RN airborne early warning drones on the QE carriers? Isn’t this an ideal role that could free up the Merlin’s?

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here