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Small Firms Turn to Drones
Technician Jeff Thornton performs a routine inspection on an Aurora Flight Sciences Corp. GoldenEye-50, an unmanned flight vehicle, in Manassas.
(By Jahi Chikwendiu -- The Washington Post)
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"The administration is looking for cheaper weapons suitable for the unconventional enemies we're facing today," he said. "So the companies are looking around and saying: 'If the budget is not growing, then what particular activity might have some growth in it?' An obvious answer is unmanned aircraft."
Unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, date back to the 1940s, when the Air Force and Navy used them to test radiation levels after nuclear blasts. But they were not used extensively for reconnaissance during combat until the end of the Vietnam War and then again at the start of Operation Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf in 1991.
That's when AAI Corp. of Hunt Valley joined with an Israeli firm to manufacture the Pioneer, widely considered the first successful new generation of U.S. drones capable of real-time intelligence gathering, Zaloga said.
The Pioneer was so effective that its sound began to intimidate Iraqis, said Steven E. Reid, vice president of AAI's unmanned air vehicle systems. "The Iraqis came to learn that when they heard the buzz of a Pioneer overhead, all heck would break loose shortly thereafter because these 16-inch rounds would start landing all around them," from a U.S. battleship about 60 miles away, Reid said.
More than a decade later, the Navy is using the Pioneer in Iraq and the Army is using AAI's Shadow 200, a 327-pound drone.
Now AAI hopes to break into the mini drone market as well. The company teamed up with Honeywell Aerospace more than a year ago to produce the Micro Air Vehicle, a small drone being tested by the Army that takes off vertically and flies for 90 minutes.
"If our customer is embracing the smaller UAVs, we want to be there for them," Reid said.
Interest in drones extends to customers who want to detect forest fires, patrol the borders, monitor traffic, and take part in search and rescue missions. Japan and Korea have used UAVs to spray crops.
The challenge in crossing over to the civilian side is determining how UAVs can safely share crowded air space with commercial airplanes and helicopters.
"But the commercial side one of these days will overwhelm and dwarf the defense side of it," said Daryl Davidson of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International in Arlington.
Whatever drives the market, it has become clear that a lot of companies want to come along for the ride. Consider AUVSI's annual industry gathering, Davidson said. This summer in Baltimore, about 3,700 people showed up, more than triple the turnout of five years ago.
