HAV Hybrid Air Vehicles

7/27/2019 HAV Hybrid Air Vehicles

1/324 | Janes Internat ional Defence Review March 2012 idr.janes.com

UKbased Hybrid Air

Vehicles HAV is touting

its optionally manned

heavierthanair airship as a

lowcost surveillance tool in thecontinuing fight against piracy

off the East African coast.

Speaking shortly after the

release in early January of a criti

cal Foreign Affairs Committee

FAC report on the international

antipiracy effort entitled Piracy

off the Coast of Somalia, HAV

executive director and former

Royal Navy RN Captain Willie

Pennefather told IHS Janesthat

he feels the hybrid air vehicles

time as a widearea surveillance

platform has come.

He envisaged about half a

dozen unmanned hybrid air

vehicles, each operating at about

, ft above a host frigate,

providing up to days of

continuous widearea surveil

lance coverage over roughly two

million kmof the Indian Ocean.

Since , the international

community has deployed varying

numbers of warships to the

Indian Ocean in a bid to stem the

loss of shipping to the Somalipirates. While early efforts did

manage to reduce losses in the

immediate vicinity of the Somali

coast, they had the effect of

pushing the problem further out

to sea.

HAV thought we could

use about six hybrid air vehicles

to patrol the east coast of

Africa, which is where all the

action was when we started

thinking about it five years ago.

Of course, as the navy has got

better at patrolling those areas

the action has shifted further

out to sea, and now its all over

the place right up to Oman,

Pennefather said.

Whereas in the furthest

recorded attack was around n miles off the Somali coast, in

pirates were attacking ship

ping as far away as , n miles.

This latter figure translates into

an area of operations AO for the

international naval task forces of

about four million km.

In its report the FAC recog

nised that this expanded AO

cannot realistically be patrolled

with the current level of assets.

It added that, as any increase in

these assets is unlikely in the

The lack of sufficiently wide

area coverage has hampered

operations to combat piracy

Hybrid Air Vehicles

heavier-than-air airship hasbeen assessed in the

anti-piracy fight off the East

African coasts as a way to

patrol vast areas utilising its

large hull surface area

KEY POINTSGARETH JENNINGS

SPECIAL REPORT Hybrid air vehicles

A mocked-up image showing how

a hybrid air vehicle could provide a

wide area surveillance capability in

the fight against piracy.

Wide area surveillance takes to the skies

Copyright 2012 IHS Global Limited.


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current economic climate, the

UK government should explore

alternative technologies, such

as ... lighterthanair LTA per

sistent wide area surveillance.

Although the FAC specificallyrefers to LTA technology,

the heavierthanair hybrid

airship arguably falls into the

same category.

In putting forward his ideas,

Pennefather feels that HAV

can build on the experience the

company has already gained with

the US Armys Long Endur

ance Multiintelligence Vehicle

LEMV programme, for which it

has provided its soontobede

risked HAV hybrid airship.Built around the same basic

airship design, the maritime

platform would go a long way to

solving the problem of trying to

patrol an area the size of main

land Europe with a relatively

small number of ships, each of

which is limited to a persistent

radar range of no more than

about miles shipborne heli

copters can extend this reach,

but only for very limited periods

at a time.

Wide area surveillanceThe antipiracy mission just

isnt working well enough,

Pennefather said. It isnt working

because the ships

we sent there

are not properly

equipped for

wide area sur

veillance. It reallyis as simple as that.

Pennefather

highlighted the case of

the UK Type frigate HMS

Northumberland, whose deploy

ment to the Indian Ocean in

April was featured on the

Discovery Channel.

HMS Northumberlandwas

a really well workedup ship

with smart, efficient individuals

and a captain who knew exactly

what he was doing. However, hewas never in the right place at

the right time because his radar

range was limited. Available to

the crew were the ships radars,

helicopter and intelligence from

other ships in the area. But

together, they failed to provide

a wide enough pattern of life.

According to Pennefather and

HAV, this collaborative pattern

of life intelligence is the key to

defeating the pirates, and the

key to obtaining this intelligenceis persistence.

When operated in an

unmanned mode, the HAV

vehicle can remain aloft for

as long as days, providing

aroundtheclock surveillance

over about , kmof sea.

A manned fixedwing aircraft,

such as the RAFs now retired

Nimrod, could only really provide

about hours of persistent

surveillance, Pennefather said,

adding: This isnt actually very

persistent because you can hang

around doing nothing for

hours and then do something on

the nineteenth hour.If you have / coverage

over days, which is as good as

it gets with todays technology,

then nobody can move without

being seen.

With this persistence, analysts

can then determine patterns of

life over an extended period.

This allows pictures to

be built up regarding the

interactionsof the smaller

pirate boats

and their oceangoing

mother ships and for areas

of particular risk to mer

chant shipping to be identified.

This would allow time to vector

surface and air assets onto threats,

or advise ships away from threats.

The presence of the HAV would

also have some deterrent value.

Staying on courseA hybrid air vehicle is able to

provide this level of persistence

as approximately per cent of

its lift is provided by the aerody

namic properties of its shaped

hull, with the remaining per

cent coming from the helium

contained within it. This makes

it extremely efficient as it can

conserve fuel in simply getting

aloft and remaining airborne.

As such, the operating costs of a

hybrid air vehicle are a fraction ofthose of other conventional mari

time patrol assets and provide an

additional advantage over more

conventional types that goes

beyond simple persistence.

Hybrid air vehicles SPECIAL REPORT

The large surface area of its hull

would allow a hybrid airship to

utilise many more sensors and

antennas than would be possible

with a conventional fixed- or rotary-

winged platform.

Hybrid Air Vehicles: 1428460



3/326 | Janes Internat ional Defence Review March 2011 idr.janes.com

SPECIAL REPORT Hybrid air vehicles

When coupled with relatively

modest procurement costs,

the hybrid airship becomes an

extremely attractive proposition

to cashstrapped governments,

especially as the technology is

already available off the shelf.

Nations can no longer afford

huge numbers of ships andlots of expensive kit, such as

maritime patrol aircraft,

Pennefather told IHS Janes.

A hybrid air vehicle is com

pletely different and completely

cost effective. It is cheaper to

build and its operating costs are

about a tenth that of conven

tional aircraft.

In addition to being more

persistent and cost effective,

a hybrid air vehicle is a more

flexible solution when comparedto existing airborne wide area

surveillance assets.

Being optionally manned,

the hybrid air vehicle can transit

controlled airspace en route to

the AO, while an unmanned

aerial vehicle cannot. Also, there

is no need to operate from a

foreign land base, as the vehicle

can be resupplied directly from

a frigate at sea.

Further, the size of the hull

allows for the fitting of many

more antennas and sensors than

would otherwise be possible

with other currently available air

assets. As well as providing greater

coverage across a range of sensor

types, it also affords greater sensi

tivity in their application.

In terms of the payloads

likely to be fitted, Pennefathercould not be specific as HAV

is primarily concerned with

the vehicle itself. The payloads,

he said, would be the domain

of an operator or partner

company. Even so, he said that

the vehicle is designed to carry

well over a ton of modular, plug

andplay, equipment.

With this equipment, the

picture provided by the vehicles

own sensors could then be

combined with those of its host

ship and other hybrid air vehicles

in the AO to provide a protected

corridor of sea about which youknow absolutely everything,

Pennefather told IHS Janes. This

protected corridor will allow mer

chant vessels to route directly

without having to circumvent

areas of pirate activity, poten

tially saving billions in operating

costs, insurance premiums and

lost cargo, he contended.

Culture changeAccording to Pennefather, the

main challenge in selling the

concept of using hybrid air

vehicles as wide area surveil

lance platforms has been culturalrather than technical.

Although there is an historical

precedent for using airships in

this manner during the Second

World War US airships operat

ing over the East Coast forced

German Uboats out to the mid

Atlantic airships are still seen

as a new technology and require

something of a cultural shift in

the current mindset before they

can be widely accepted.

Even so, Pennefather is convinced that the dual drivers of

increased operational need and

declining defence expenditure

make the hybrid air vehicle a

highly attractive prospect.

For those that get the

concept, it has generated a great

deal of interest as the amount of

money available to the Ministry

of Defence reduces, he said,

adding: They are having to think

outside of the box and the clever

people are looking at this.

Crown

Copyrig

ht:136

4159

While the

international

community has

had an effect on

piracy off the

east coast of

Africa, as dem-

onstrated by this

image of a fast

attack craft be-

ing destroyed by

the UK frigate

HMS Chatham,

the lack of a

persistent wide

area surveil-

lance capabil-

ity has severely

hampered its

ability to be in

the right place

at the right time.

The graphic illustrates

how a number of

hybrid airships work-

ing in concert could

provide a wide area

surveillance capability

over a large swathe of

the Indian Ocean.

Hy

bri

dAirVe

hicles:

1452088


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HAV Hybrid Air Vehicles