Invulnerable drone

[Tourist]

Stuck at a desk this morning and my mind is wandering through idle musings whilst reading the various stealthy aircraft threads.


I was wondering whether it would be possible to build a drone with the sole purpose of soaking up air launched missiles to clear the way for an attacking force behind it.
It has to fly at a representative speed have a representative RCS and do nothing else but keep flying whilst being repeatedly hit by small warheads allowing the real aircraft to get close to the stealthy ones.

Could it be done?

[WhiteOvies]

Wouldn't it make more sense to fit it with a decent DAS system to acheive the same aim rather than actually allow the missiles to hit?

[Tourist]

Yes, but then how much would that cost? I am assuming that it is a one way mission. eventually something will get it.

The other option is top and bottom mounted goalkeeper.....:ok:

[Tourist]

I was thinking that something Tornado sized that didn't have to carry bombload, a pilot, undercarriage, fuel to get home, DAS, etc etc could be made a lot like a main battle tank and still fly. Modern air-to-air warheads are not exactly optimized for armour plate.

[Courtney Mil]

I've designed one for you, Tousist. Here it is out on a decoy mission :ok:

Link rather than picture because it's a bit big...

Click here (http://www.3squadron.org.au/Pix/Modern%20Day%20Photos/JindiF18.jpg)

[WhiteOvies]

If you fit a Goalkeeper to the bottom someone might mistake it as a CAS platform and replace the A-10 with it... :ok:

[ACW418]

Excellent Courtney.

ACW

[Tourist]

Ah Courtney, I believe it is only the RAF who can't shoot those drones down...

[Courtney Mil]

We kept trying, but they kept stopping us - mostly.

[ORAC]

http://www.newburyscalemodelclub.org.uk/wp-content/gallery/kalinin-k-7/kalinin_k-7_3.jpg

[Tourist]

ORAC

I think they would just bomb that beast...

[27mm]

My claim to fame is shooting down a Jindy on MPC in a 92 Sqn F4, XV422. KC and I were tasked with a Fox 1 lag profile. Yoda presciently said that the MPC staff engineered profile would result in the mx ignoring everything but the Jindy, which it did. The mx went straight up the Jindy's jetpipe, causing much anglo-saxon and Gz as we pulled away from the debris. The groundcrew lads painted a Jindy on the intake ramp, next to the Jag (yes, that was XV422 too!) :ok:

[Bevo]

The ADM-141A/B TALD was an American decoy missile originally built by Brunswick Corporation for the USAF and the Israeli Air Force. Later it transitioned to joint US/Israeli manufacture with Israeli Military Industries Advanced Systems Division (IMI-ASD).

The Tactical Air Launched Decoy (TALD) was intended to confuse and saturate enemy air defenses, as part of an overall SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses) strategy thus allowing attacking aircraft and weapons a higher probability of penetrating to the target. The Improved TALD is a turbojet-powered version.

The TALD was used with great success in the opening stages of Operation Desert Storm in 1991; more than 100 were launched on the opening night of the war. This prompted the Iraqi air defense to activate many of its radars - most of which were then destroyed by anti-radiation missiles.




http://imagery.vnfawing.com/archive/UAV/ADM-141/p0530461.jpg

[Tourist]

Yes, I'm aware of that kind of drone, but that's not really what I'm asking about. I'm interested in whether you could make a drone essentially bulletproof wrt. normal AAMs

[Courtney Mil]

Maybe if you built it out of steel plate, but it might have a very long take off roll. How about diverting all power to the forward shields?

[ShotOne]

How about building it of polystyrene foam, sprayed with aluminium paint and build a few thousand of them.

[Dan Winterland]

MALD (Miniature Air Launched Decoy)

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--smvk92g2--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/17tev6yuydo4kjpg.jpg

[Courtney Mil]

If you want to make a flying object appear to be an aircraft, you pretty much need to build an aircraft. It's not just speed, altitude and RCS. You've got to be able fool NCTR and passive sensors. But that sort of thing may not be bulletproof. Or missile proof.

[barnstormer1968]

Didn't the USAF have a force of controlled aircraft to go ahead of the B52s and get shot out of the sky leaving less missiles to hit the B52s in the event of a Third World War?

From memory the sacrificial aircraft had round targets painted on them and were known as the V force. :)

[Tourist]

Courtney

Yes, well that is essentially the question I'm asking. Could one build an aircraft that was required to carry no load, that would be impervious to the standard modern warheads?

I'm well aware of sacrificial decoys, they are a different answer to the problem.

It can be launched by rocket if need be. It can use all the spare weight saved by removing the normal requirements of an aircraft as bulletproof plating.

Take a Tornado. Imagine all that weight carrying capacity was used up as armour. Could it be done?

[Courtney Mil]

Tourist,

Yeah, I see. But just adding plating over the usual Ali/duralumin/composite skin will massively change the NCTR picture. That said, yes, you probably could produce something like that; AAM warheads are not that big - except something like Phoenix, obviously. Theoretically, yes. Practically, not so sure.

How much effort and expense it would take is another question. The MALD idea was probably easier in its day.

The real problem with it now is that you should have patented your idea and then sold it to BAES to offer to an "inside contact" in the MoD instead of putting on the web first.

:ok:

[NutLoose]

Quantity over quality is the name of the game, I would think armouring something the size of the Tornado on the off chance it gets hit several times but is expendable due to no gear seems overkill when you can have several cheap unmanned drones to do the same job.

Not saying that you couldn't utilise war weary aircraft and remotely fly them, similar to the U.S. Military target F16 drones and launch drones off those ahead of any attack..

[Courtney Mil]

Nutty, I agree. I was answering Tourist's specific questions. Decoys to confuse the air picture would be a different matter and very much simpler and cheaper.

I had thought of the vast number of boneyard babies that could become combat QFs. It's quite a bit operation to launch and control one, but still worth a thought. Of course, a bunch of obvious decoys incoming might alert an enemy to the fact that something's happening.