A C-130 Could Snatch Gremlin Drones Right Out of the Air

By David Axe,War Is Boring

The U.S. military is moving ahead with development of a new drone that launches from a cargo plane and, at the end of its mission, can return to the same plane for a mid-air recovery.

The new Gremlin drone could support surveillance and attack missions, according to its developer, Alabama-based Dynetics. In April 2018, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency awarded Dynetics a two-year, $40-million contract to design and build several Gremlins. The company expects to test the new drones with a C-130 mothership in late 2019.

Gremlins is part of a wide-ranging effort by DARPA and other military agencies to develop small, inexpensive unmanned aerial vehicles that can enhance the capabilities of existing warplanes.

The Pentagon’s Strategic Capabilities Office is working on soda-can-size, single-use Perdix spy drones that launch from the flare-and-chaff dispensers on fighter jets. DARPA is working on a “flying missile rail” — in essence, a self-propelled robotic weapons pylon that can detach from a fighter while carrying its own missiles.

Meanwhile, the Office of Naval Research is developing a 12-foot UAV called Dash-X that would launch from EA-18G radar-jamming planes and assist with the suppression of enemy air defenses.

And in 2016 the Air Force gave San Diego-based Kratos $41 million to design a 30-foot-long, “runway-independent,” attack drone called the Low-Cost Attritable Aircraft. LCAA could launch by way of a catapult and, according to the military, should be cheap enough for fast mass-production.

Kratos already builds BQM-167, MQM-178 and BQM-177 target drones for the U.S. military, and has self-funded development of the XQ-222 attack drone. In March 2018, the Pentagon gave Kratos permission to export an armed version of the BQM-167 that it calls “Mako.” The Air Force Research Laboratories is also testing Mako as a potential robotic wingman for manned fighters.