At the First Sea Lord’s Sea Power Conference, Admiral Sir Ben Key presented his compelling vision for the future of the Royal Navy.
With an emphasis on the evolution towards a blend of crewed and uncrewed aircraft, he described a path that is set to redefine the nature of maritime operations.
“…in the future both our escorts and aircraft carriers will operate a mix of crewed and uncrewed aircraft,” stated Sir Ben in his keynote speech, setting the tone for a discussion of innovation and transformation in the naval domain.
Key made it clear that the Royal Navy is committed to being at the forefront of this emerging technology. He emphasised the importance of both persistent uncrewed rotary wing systems and jet-powered Banshee drones.
“Leading the way in this field will be persistent uncrewed rotary wing systems and jet powered Banshee drones,” he affirmed, indicating the adoption of the latest technology in this regard.
Looking to the near future, Admiral Key painted a picture of deploying more advanced surveillance and offensive strike platforms. These would feature enhanced capabilities, increased range, and longer endurance, all launched and recovered from aircraft carriers.
His vision embodies a strategic shift towards deployable agility, ensuring the Royal Navy can operate with enhanced flexibility across the globe.
“We have a vision in the near term of deploying more highly capable, long range and long endurance surveillance and offensive strike platforms: launched from aircraft carriers, recovered to them and ensuring therefore deployable agility around the world,” Sir Ben Key declared.
Suddenly having two big fat carriers with not enough planes seems like a really good idea. 12 F35B mixed with a range of drones may be quite the capability. As we have seen with GD sea guardian drones offering ASW and AEW, flying off of and landing on a floating runway like QE class is much easier than operating from a CATOBAR carrier.
And the Treasury says…. X
and the Treasury says “cheaper option than only being to fill them with F35Bs”
I suspect that will appeal to them.
Less pension costs – that appeals to Treasury!
Someone has to operate, recover, and maintain drones. It probably won’t cut down personnel numbers/costs but will still be cheaper overall. Well you’d hope anyway!
The cheapness is an illusion TBH….
The main saving is not having or maintaining the crew support and safety systems.
Confirmation that we won’t be getting more/enough F-35’s, so longe range Strike read Mk41’s on T-31 and drones doing recon/patrol with few F-35s for show / Air defence meaning we won’t need to intergrate any uk weapons Ammran and Paveway will do.
😂
What I find very interesting in all of this, is the conflict inside the Ukraine has shown the world that drones, loitering munitions, modern fire and forget ATGMs are not only here to stay, but they are the future. Until now the West (but in this case the UK) have been most reticent in adopting these technologies on mass, (exactly like how the British Cavalry objected to the Tank) Looks at the Air force especially how they mocked a certain Dominic Cummings who was pushing in the direction of UAVs and such in 2019. A move which didn’t go down with… Read more »
You might not be aware, but I believe that close to 50% of RAF “flight” hours are currently flown by UAV. Just because commentators aren’t aware doesn’t mean it ain’t happening.
OkamsRazor wrote: “”You might not be aware, but I believe that close to 50% of RAF “flight” hours are currently flown by UAV.”” Maybe they do, but the RAF boasts 9 to 1O Reaper drones, whislt it also boasts: 100+ Typhoons 29 or 30 F35s Now that is just the strike package and I haven’t included the rest, if that is the metric, we are going to use then either the Reapers are up in the air all the time, or the rest aren’t. But going back to numbers 10 Reapers is nothing and in a near peer bunfight… Read more »
I agree we need some people building their/our own stuff. One thing I would say is that as a rule we are well behind in aerodynamics compared to say Turkey. We need more garden sheds and start putting stuff together ourselves.
That sounds bloody fantastic!!.
Always the problem when the treasury are involved is the question additional capabilities or instead of capabilities.. in this case they need to be additional to F35 not instead of ordering enough
Like the American Sea Hunter, an autonomous unmanned surface vehicle?
Persistent uncrewed rotary wing systems and..banshee drones are not exactly world leading. The RFI for cats and traps to launch heavy UCAVs envisaged a system that could be operational as early as 2023. Since then nothing.
There isn’t much to show for all the money spent on unmanned projects. So we continue to buy American platforms.
Unmanned tech is developing all the time. We could spend countless millions on cats and traps, then find they are pointless as the drones we need are VSTOL capable. If we are going to sink money into something, that may be the best option. We are already doing so under the “Proteus” program, albeit that doesn’t look like it will deliver heavy UAVs. That would be the next stage.
I did suggest when the RFI was first reported that a more logical approach for our carriers might be a STOVL UCAV. Would the software needed be any more.complex than that for a cats and traps launch and landing system?
Did he say why this would be a good idea?
So much excitement on here yet the fact is underneath the waffle we are not remotely close to having drones to support f35, never mind anything as capable as loyal wingman. Just more PR hot air.
Exactly. Nothing wrong with using rotary drones or Banshees but they are not going to make up for the low numbers of F35 planned. In fact ,neither type needs a huge carrier to operate them. So we’re left with a vision.
Russian carrier on the path to be….able to float, launch aircraft without them all crashing and going past their 12 mile limit without a tug or a serious fire!
It’s not the launching aircraft the Russian’s have problems with, it’s landing them back into the carrier 😂
Lost 2 in 2 months on the Syria deployment…
There are no drones that can fly like a F-35 or a Super Hornet for that matter, It’s just a cost cutting idea.
yet
It’s not going to happen and if it does, it will never be as good as all trained pilots.
“It’s not going to happen and if it does”…
I love a confident statement 😆
Guess you’ve not been following the news regarding recent AI advances.
I have no doubt drones can fly and no doubt they are advanced. But question remains why as the MOD going down this line?. Shortage of manpower is a problem for the RN . Being drones (maybe) an option for the future, we still need a staffed Royal Navy. One solution could be Gurkhas – Thousands apply for the army but only hundreds are chosen. Might be a good idea to offer the best of the rest, a position in the RN, I recon they would jump at that. Back to drones – Not just planes on carriers, it’s also… Read more »
It’s obvious why all armed forces, not just the RN, are going down the drone route. • You don’t need a highly trained pilot to fly them, which means you’re not putting pilots in harm’s way. So they are expendable. • Not needing a pilot they can also be smaller, which makes them less detectable and easier to store aboard ship. • They are cheaper than equivalent manned systems, to both acquire and operate. Obviously the RN needs humans, but drones allow more to be done with less. Drones for mine-hunting are an absolute no-brainier. Instead of putting a ship’s… Read more »
I take your points Sean and I agree we need to look after pilots as much as is possible. IE though is coming now – Supermarkets have let staff go for clever check out, but had to re-hire some to sort the problems when it goes wrong and it often does. That’s trivial i know in comparison with say BT who are letting go 55,000 which is 40% of it global workforce as it moves apace into AI. My problem with defense is numbers will be cut, as AI is rolled out further. When it goes wrong – then what?… Read more »
So now we are going to get our CSG on the cheap, with fewer trained pilots. Watch for the MoD announcement that the F35B buy will be reduced in favour of balloons and gold-plated souped-up UAVs. Oh dear.
Are there any of the uav currently or in future capable of being flown from a stovl Carrier
General Atomics have a STOL kit for the MQ-9B Reaper high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) drone.
Then there’s the rotary-wing drones that can be used, such as the Schiebel Camcopters which the RN is buying.
The RN also has a request to industry for proposals for a ‘drone cat’ that could be installed on the QE class for use alongside the ski-jump.
It might even be possible to fly the MQ-25 Stingray off the QE class using the ski-jump. In bidding for the Indian navy, it was shown that the F18 can take off using a ski-jump instead of a cat.
Can they land back on it though? – if so get some in !
The MQ-9B Reaper with STOL kit?
I do t think it’s gained ship certification yet, but GA talk about it being able to take off and land on the America class amphibious assault ships. They are shorter than the QE class and have neither cats or traps fitted.
Sorry was a bit ambiguous..I meant the F16’s….
F16s????
Sorry that was a typo (it was late)..I was referring to the F18’s you mentioned in your original reply regards them taking off using ski jumps…
Boeing was able to demonstrate using a land-based ramp that the F18 could operate off a ship with a ski-jump. No details on munitions/fuel load – which we know is an issue with Russian jets on the Admiral Kuznetsov.
However they would still need traps to land.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9niPfu1yIr4
The only country with drones that are capable that can fly from short runway is Turkey. TB3 is an upgraded variant of TB2 with more weight load and weapons and range with GPS control. It can communicate with Turkish autonomous boats that have anti ship missiles and can hunt submarines, with over 500km range. Japan has shown interest. Then there is Kizilema which is way more advanced stealth unmanned jet powered fighter jet which can fly off short runways. It has AESA radar 6 hour flight range with air to air missiles and air to ground missiles. Test on the… Read more »
Wrong. The US has the Mojave – a Reaper with STOL kit – that can use short runways. Which is why the RN has announced a deal to trial their use on the QE class carriers.