The U.S. Navy recently used a drone control system now being installed on all its supercarriers to operate an actual uncrewed aircraft for the first time. The uncrewed platform in question was a stealthy General Atomics Avenger, which that company has been using as a technology testbed to support its work on autonomy and Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) type drones. This underscores the Navy’s plans to use the Unmanned Carrier Aviation Mission Control System (UMCS) to support more than just the MQ-25 Stingray tanker drone, which is still set to be the service’s first operational advanced uncrewed carrier-based aircraft.
Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) announced the successful completion of the test, which took place on November 5, in a press release earlier today. Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works advanced projects division, which has long been involved in the development of the UMCS, participated in the event along with General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI).
“Navy Air Vehicle Pilots (AVPs) at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland controlled the MQ-20 [Avenger] during its flight from GA-ASI’s test site in California,” according to NAVAIR’s release. “The UMCS connected Beyond Line of Site (BLOS) to the MQ-20 via a proliferated low Earth orbit (pLEO) satellite constellation and transmitted flight control commands and received mission systems data.”
“This flight was the first time a GA-ASI UAS completed bi-directional communications using the UMCS operation codes while performing autonomous behavior,” per a separate release from General Atomics. The company also said the Avenger leveraged its Tactical Autonomy Core Ecosystem (TacACE) software to fly in a semi-autonomous mode during the test. Avengers have been heavily involved in the testing of different artificial intelligence-driven autonomy systems over the years.
The core component of the Navy’s UMCS is the MD-5E ground control station, which includes an array of monitors, tablet-like devices, and other computer hardware. The central element on the software side is Skunk Works’ Multi Domain Combat System (MDCX). Other ancillary elements make up the complete ‘system of systems.’
As already noted, UMCS is in the process of being integrated onto all of the Navy’s Nimitz and Ford class supercarriers as part of the addition of a dedicated Unmanned Air Warfare Center (UAWC) on those ships. In August, NAVAIR announced that the Nimitz class USS George H.W. Bush had become the first flattop to get the full UAWC.
The development of the MD-5 and the rest of the UMCS, as well as the UAWC, traces all the way back to the abortive Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) effort that then eventually evolved into the MQ-25 program. The development of the Stingray has been beset by issues, but the Navy is still pushing ahead with plans to buy 76 of the drone tankers.
The MQ-25 is currently set to be the first operational carrier-based drone in the Navy’s inventory starting in 2026. The drones are set to be attached to E-2 Hawkeye airborne early warning and control aircraft squadrons within carrier air wings, at least initially.
The Stingrays will be a critical tool for extending the reach of future carrier air wings, as well as eliminating the need for F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighters to fly in the tanker role. The critical importance of increasing the range of the service’s carrier-based crewed tactical jets just recently re-emerged with a separate call for ways to extend the unrefueled combat radius of the F/A-18E/Fs.
The Stingrays will also have secondary intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance (ISR) capabilities, and giving them more roles and missions, including stand-off strike, could be on the horizon.
At the same time, the Navy has been consistent in stressing how its work on the UMCS is a stepping stone adding even more uncrewed capabilities to its carrier air wings.
“UMCS is laying a foundation that will enable control of all unmanned carrier aircraft, starting with the MQ-25 aircraft,” Capt. Daniel Fucito, head of NAVAIR’s Unmanned Carrier Aviation office, or PMA-268, said in a statement following the November 5 test. “The UMCS opens the door for efficiently introducing future unmanned systems into the complex carrier command and control architecture.”
“The Navy will use data from the demonstration to refine the program’s requirements and develop key command and control technologies,” the release also stated. “The team plans to conduct additional digital and live surrogate test flights to demonstrate autonomy, mission systems, crewed-uncrewed teaming, advanced communications and further command and control development.”
All of this is further underscored by the use of MQ-20 in this first-of-its-kind UMCS demonstration rather than Boeing’s flying Stingray test asset, referred to as T1.
The Navy is still ironing out its plans for a fleet of CCA-type drones that will operate in close cooperation, at least initially, with crewed elements of the carrier air wing. However, the service has laid out a vision in the past for CCAs that are cheap enough to be “consumable,” and expended as one-way kamikaze drones or aerial targets for training or testing use at the end of relatively short service lives. You can read more about those plans here.
Overall, the Navy has a stated goal of at least 60 percent of the aircraft in its future air wings being uncrewed.
The Navy’s CCA work is also directly interviewed with that of the U.S. Air Force, as well as related work the U.S. Marine Corps is doing, especially when it comes to interoperable control architectures. The expectation then is that UMCS will be among the systems able to exercise control over drones owned by other services, as required.
It’s also worth noting here that General Atomics is one of two companies (the other being Anduril) that are developing drones as part of the initial phase, or Increment 1, of the Air Force’s CCA program. General Atomics is also now working on a carrier-based member of its Gambit family of drones, also known as Gambit 5, as well as other carrier-capable designs. The company has been pitching these designs to a number of navies around the world.
Questions are emerging about the Navy’s ability to realize its future uncrewed and crewed carrier aviation ambitions. The MQ-25’s troubles have led to significant delays and cost growth. Earlier this year, the service announced its intention to push back the timeline for a new sixth-generation stealth crewed carrier-based combat jet, or F/A-XX, and the potential for significant budget cuts to that program has since come up. The Navy is in the process of selecting a final design now and is still hoping to have F/A-XXs begin entering operational service in the 2030s.
This also comes as the Air Force has been issuing increasingly dire warnings in public about its ability to afford various big-ticket modernization programs, including its own new sixth-generation ‘fighter,’ CCA drones, and stealth tankers, which you can read more about in detail here. The entire U.S. military seems to be in the midst of a certain amount of upheaval over modernization priorities amid fears of at best largely flat budgets in the coming years.
In the meantime, the Navy is clearly pushing ahead with work on the UMCS to lay the groundwork for new drones in its carrier air wings, whatever that mix of uncrewed platforms might ultimately look like.
Contact the author: joe@twz.com
