Aerial re-arming is an interesting concept.
There are obvious difficulties is realizing such a system in practice, due to turbulence, change in C of G etc.
The US patent mentions some of the other problems that need to be addressed. Special multi-shot pylons and launchers would be required that would allow the munitions to be locked into place. Aerial weapons have aerodynamic surfaces to control the weapon in flight; in transit form re-among aircraft these surfaces would have to be protected from the airflow to avoid unnecessary forces on the boom and inadvertent motion.
Other issues are how long would it take to re-load and the aircraft.
Rather than use a convention approach perhaps a clutch of weapons could be loaded in a canister, the cover of which could be ditched before deploying the weapons.
At present such a system does appear to be impractical, however recently the first wholly automatic air-to-air refuelling has been successfully been demonstrated and that UAVs (and manned aircraft) have carried out fully automatic landings on carriers.
Although musing about the technicalities of how such a system would work is stimulating, it is worth considering why such a system has been proposed? The US patent gives us a clue.
“[0005] Shrinking defense budgets, combined with the increasing needs of the United States to project its military power often on short notice throughout the world, requires the armed forces to do more with less equipment and fewer personnel. Recently, as can be seen in the case of the war against Iraq, there has been a lack of consensus among allies forcing the United States to "go it alone" when prosecuting the war against terrorism. The nations of Europe, for example, lying closer as they do to areas of turmoil such as the Middle East, are often reluctant to take hard stances against terrorists who lie within an automobile ride from their borders. As can be seen most recently with Turkey during operation "Iraqi Freedom", nations are often reluctant to promptly provide forward operating locations or to grant flyover rights for United States military aircraft lest these nations seem to be associated too closely with United States military initiatives. The delays caused by these diplomatic barriers can seriously impact United States' combat operational planning.
[0006] What is needed therefore is a method to not only refuel U.S. military aircraft while in flight, so as to extend mission operational effectiveness, but also a means to continually reload the munitions which have been expended during combat operations without having to return to either a distant friendly nation's ground bases, or in the case of naval airpower, to a distant aircraft carrier, to obtain more munitions.”
Recall that B2s have flown bombing missions to the Middle-East from their home at the Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, USA. Some of these missions took nearly two days to complete.
(There have been plans to fly B2s from a base in the UK and Diego Garcia, but so far the facilities have not been constructed).
The US patent indicates the difficulty of having fight at long range when close range bases cannot be established. Also bear in mind that this patent has been prepared by the USAF and while it does mention navy carriers as bases, having an aerial re-arming capability could be used as an argument against the requirement for the projection of power from the sea, the traditional role of the USN.
There are also other clues in the patent (I have snipped these paragraphs a little).
“[0022] There are several advantages ….including providing a method for striking strategic targets without regard to forward operating locations or airspace agreements; extending indefinitely the Close Air Support mission in support of forces on the ground….. The invention thus fills the traditional void in airpower theory, that airpower cannot be effective in fighting the unconventional war against insurgents; using the present invention and an aerial task force, as soon as targets `pop up` they can be hit immediately.
The key here is that CAS could be provided on a taxi-rank system, with armed combat aircraft held forward, ready to attack pop-up targets; whilst set-back from the combat area, combat aircraft could be re-armed and refuelled, before returning to the front line. Obviously at some point the combat aircraft would have to return to base and land, for servicing. This approach would be suitable for UCAV operations, if aerial re-arming could be achieved the limiting factors for manned aircraft would be the endurance of the pilot. Note that the length of current missions extended by in-flight refuelling is usually related to maintenance issues, such as the quantity of engine oil carried.
If aerial re-arming were to be included in the original requirement for a new platform (probably a UCAV), I am sure that someone would find a way to make it work.
In the past stranger things have been achieved, parasitic fighters deployed and recovered from US strategic bombers, catching film canisters ejected from satellites in space when parachuting to earth with modified C-130s, (similar aircraft were also used to pick up troops from the ground without landing). Even concepts such as nuclear powered aircraft have been considered, so I would no write-off in-flight re-arming, just yet.
During the Vietnam War the US did many experiments with recovery systems and the use of drones in general, other countries including the UK conducted similar trials, some of this work involved capturing drones in the air, but I do not think they were re-deployed.
Michael RVR mentioned operating UAVs from “Blimps”, during the first world war fighter aircraft were slung from under airships to provide protection to the airship from fighters and also to extend the range of scout aircraft. Such aircraft could hook back onto the airship.
The advantage of modern airships is that it is no longer necessary to have large ground crews. Along the US Mexican boarder tethered balloons are used to place a powerful radar antenna high in the air to monitor the boarder for illegal drug smugglers. They have some problems, particularly when a balloon has to land it leaves a gap in the fence.
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/airdef/tars.htm
Modern airships may offer greater flexibility. Having the capacity and to deploy UAVs quickly to go a take a detailed look at a potential threat and if necessary attack would be very useful in areas with leaky boarders.
IMHO the first use of this concept is likely to be a system to extend the endurance, availability and flexibility of small UAVs. These aircraft are often quite slow and as a result take considerable time to transit out and back from an area of operation. Using an automatic boom system, similar to the one recently used for the re-fuelling demonstration and withdrawing the UAV inside the cargo aircraft (C-130/C-17), could allow a swarm of UAVs to persist for long periods over the target area.
Re-arming outside the aircraft would be much more difficult.
Chris
