UAV and UCAV carrier designs

Bgray

I really should change my personal text
Joined
1 February 2012
Messages
78
Reaction score
23
Here's a question-- right now, UAVs are becoming far more important, to where it's looking like more and more ships will have an organic capability. But to date, that generaly means A. putting a UAV on an aviation ship (carrier) or B. using a helicopter deck.

Have there been many studies at what designs would look like as a more dedicated drone support platform? I'm not just looking at "pure UCAV carriers" but the changes needed to support a more extensive drone presence for a warship that also has a function as a conventional surface combatant.
 
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UXV_Combatant
 
I'd seen that one, but it seems to be one of hte only ones. It's a bit odd, given how much drones are proliferationg that we're not seeing more work on drone specific ships/handling systems. (Could it be becuase drone designs are still so much in flux?)
 
UCAV carriers
 

Attachments

  • FR- CNIM Mauric 70m OPV.jpg
    FR- CNIM Mauric 70m OPV.jpg
    69.2 KB · Views: 642
  • NK- Neu-AC.jpg
    NK- Neu-AC.jpg
    22.2 KB · Views: 552
  • US- CVUAV.jpg
    US- CVUAV.jpg
    4.4 KB · Views: 544
Some more
 

Attachments

  • US- Aerial_aircraft_carrier_drone.jpeg
    US- Aerial_aircraft_carrier_drone.jpeg
    4.7 KB · Views: 545
  • UK- startpoint_t2050_aft_view_copyright_startpoint.jpg
    UK- startpoint_t2050_aft_view_copyright_startpoint.jpg
    126.4 KB · Views: 349
  • US- AHS.JPG
    US- AHS.JPG
    31.5 KB · Views: 597
Artists impression of strike carrier for small CATOVL UCAVs. Also preliminary CAD model screenshot, principal particulars and UCAV types for the monohull strike carrier and TriSWACH persistence CTOL carrier.

From:

Pawling, R & Andrews, DJ, “The Ship Design Challenge of Naval Unmanned Aerial Vehicles”, International Conference Warship 2009: Air Power at Sea, RINA, London, June 2009.
 

Attachments

  • ucav_2009.png
    ucav_2009.png
    816.3 KB · Views: 491
  • strike.png
    strike.png
    274.2 KB · Views: 500
  • persistence.png
    persistence.png
    360.3 KB · Views: 562
On a bit of a tangent:
 
Pawling, R & Andrews, DJ, “The Ship Design Challenge of Naval Unmanned Aerial Vehicles”, International Conference Warship 2009: Air Power at Sea, RINA, London, June 2009.

So, does anyone know if it ws only released at the conference, or was it published elsewhere, because I'd really like to look at that.
 
Only ever a thought exercise, but low-profile UCAV carrier http://www.hisutton.com/Low-Profile_UCAV_Aircraft_Carrier.html

That seems to be a fair weather boat. Not much good for anything of a sea state. A bit of a modern 'monitor' if you will.
Who would be taking off in sea state 3 or 4 anyway. Need ucav carriers which can hug a shore line and not be seen easily. Mini carriers can support high turn around/soties the closer they are to their IADs tgts. Persistent search by being close to shore w high sortie rate rather than by forcing the craft to be high endurance.
 
Last edited:
Pawling, R & Andrews, DJ, “The Ship Design Challenge of Naval Unmanned Aerial Vehicles”, International Conference Warship 2009: Air Power at Sea, RINA, London, June 2009.

So, does anyone know if it ws only released at the conference, or was it published elsewhere, because I'd really like to look at that.

Was anyone able to help you?
 

Mentions both the UXV as well as Naval Group's Ocean Avenger concept that was revealed last year.
 
Wow… that design violates several fundamental precepts of carrier aviation. No deck park, no way to recover aircraft in quick succession… better not be aiming for high sortie generation!
 

Attachments

  • 8609E148-2409-4A42-B1FB-5FBB13AF666B.jpeg
    8609E148-2409-4A42-B1FB-5FBB13AF666B.jpeg
    93.1 KB · Views: 81
  • CB139F47-09C9-4A76-B62A-AD550A15079D.jpeg
    CB139F47-09C9-4A76-B62A-AD550A15079D.jpeg
    98.2 KB · Views: 72
  • 606E542F-2623-4099-A65F-5C323E814888.jpeg
    606E542F-2623-4099-A65F-5C323E814888.jpeg
    94.2 KB · Views: 69
  • C8F32CF6-CD9D-4662-9FD4-CDE72AD60685.jpeg
    C8F32CF6-CD9D-4662-9FD4-CDE72AD60685.jpeg
    100.4 KB · Views: 66
  • D3A77734-D9BD-4FF8-859B-8067FE1FE321.jpeg
    D3A77734-D9BD-4FF8-859B-8067FE1FE321.jpeg
    87.1 KB · Views: 77
Honestly I think ‘cruiser sized’ ships will be used as drone carriers and wouldn’t be surprised if there was a potential revitalization of the aviation cruiser concept with drones.
We already saw that idea floating around with the dreadnought 2050 concept ship.

However a dedicated drone carrier has no reason to look different from a regular carrier.
You can likely get the same number of airframes on a smaller ship, or a larger number of airframes on ships the size of modern current carriers.
 
Wow… that design violates several fundamental precepts of carrier aviation. No deck park, no way to recover aircraft in quick succession… better not be aiming for high sortie generation!

At the stage where a navy can replicate the strike capacities of a legacy carrier air wing's aircraft of EW and strike capabilities in a single flight, or a single aircraft with something like UCLASS, you really don't need sortie generation much anymore.

Honestly I think ‘cruiser sized’ ships will be used as drone carriers and wouldn’t be surprised if there was a potential revitalization of the aviation cruiser concept with drones.
We already saw that idea floating around with the dreadnought 2050 concept ship.

However a dedicated drone carrier has no reason to look different from a regular carrier.
You can likely get the same number of airframes on a smaller ship, or a larger number of airframes on ships the size of modern current carriers.

Making an angled flight deck on a 10-20,000 ton hull with Aegis, without stacking multi-level recovery/launch lanes, would be hard. In fact it might be impossible on a monohull, as I suspect the multi-hull design is simply to facilitate a lighter tonnage much like the LCS ships.

So it looks funny because it's small I guess.
 
Last edited:

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom