Description
The Weapon System
The Shadow 200 is a small, lightweight, tactical UAV system. It is designed as a ground maneuver commander's primary day/night reconnaissance, surveillance, target acquisition, and battle damage assessment system. System elements of the Shadow Tactical UAV system include the aerial vehicle, the aerial vehicle transport, the launcher, the ground control station, the remote ground data terminal, and recovery system.
The air vehicle is constructed of composite materials, with a wingspan of 12.75 feet, and length of 11.2 feet. Maximum gross weight is 328 pounds, and it can carry a payload of 60 pounds. Power is provided by a commercial 38-horsepower rotary engine that uses motor gasoline (MOGAS). Cruising speed is 65-85 knots (maximum speed 123 knots), maximum altitude is 15,000 feet, and endurance is 5+ hours.
The payload has a commercially available electro-optic and infrared camera, and communications equipment for command and control and imagery dissemination. Onboard global positioning system instrumentation provides navigation information.
The Shadow TUAV uses standard takeoff procedures or can be launched from a hydraulic rail launcher. The aerial vehicle uses conventional wheeled landing on flat surfaces about the length of a soccer field or can be recovered using a deployable arresting hook on the aircraft and ground-based cables.
Shadow TUAVs can carry approximately 60 pounds of intelligence-gathering payloads, including electro-optical, EW, and various sensors. By resizing the air vehicle fuselage and lengthening its wings, the Shadow could carry various payloads weighing up to 100 pounds with minimal impact in cost and performance.
Production Status, Population, and Planned Life
The Shadow UAV was approved for full rate production in October 2002, and the production contract was awarded in December 2002. The Shadow 200 TUAV system went from program initiation (Milestone 0), through Initial Operational Test and Evaluation (IOT&E) to full-rate production decision (Milestone III) in just 33 months.
The contract with AAI Corporation will provide 41 Shadow 200 TUAVs for the active Army component, to include all six Stryker Brigade Combat Teams. The FY03 program is expected to fund nine systems at a cost of approximately $99 million in procurement dollars.
Prime Contractor: AAI Corp, Cockeysville, MD (a subsidiary of General Industrial, Inc.)
Office of Primary Responsibility: PM, UAV Systems, Army Aviation and Missile Command
R-TOC Focus Areas (From USD (AT&L) memorandum dated May 10, 1999)
1. Reduced demand from weapon systems via reliability and maintainability improvements.
- The PMO is identifying R&M drivers and developing Reliability Growth Initiatives to address them.
2. Reduced supply chain response times, leading to reduced spares, system support footprint, and depot needs
- PMO UAVS has begun the implementation of AIT. Just-in-Time (JIT) supply chain management, enabled by AIT, will result in reduced Customer Wait Time (CWT) and allow for the management of spares assets at an Army rather than unit level. This ability to actively, and in near real-time, track and manage repaired/evacuated spares thru the logistic chain will provide the opportunity to redirect spares to needing units and have direct impact on unit readiness. The reduction of data entry errors, the collection of real-time data, and ability to transition to an automated Maintenance Management System, enabled by AIT, will result in a significant reduction in TOC.
3. Competitive sourcing of product support, leading to streamlining and overhead reductions.
- The UAVS Operational Requirements Document (ORD) establishes performance parameters that address Operational Availability (Ao) and Mean Time Between System Abort (MTBSA). Metrics include MTBF, Mean Time To Repair (MTTR), and CWT. The UAV Supportability Strategy implements PBL to achieve these metrics and additionally tasks the Product Support Integrator to achieve unit Operational Readiness Requirements. Initial Economic Analysis indicates that PBL may reduce TOC by as much as 30%
- The Phase I product support contract will be cost plus incentive, with a primary emphasis on data collection and analysis. The PMO anticipates awarding a fixed-price, performance based, award term product support contract for Phase II.
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