Drone Aircraft New CER (DANCER)

Drone Aircraft New CER (DANCER) development addresses a rapidly evolving need for Air Force in the integration and operations of first strike UCAS drone aircraft, namely the operational and maintenance budgeting for these aircraft. Use as an extension of the J-35 strike fighters capabilities and force projection in deep and first strike missions could be critical in achieving air dominance over adversaries. New LCC CERs that account for differing operational capabilities of drone craft such as rail-launching, parachute recovery, modular build-outs, and expendable pods along with general safety, logistics, maintenance, and related operational issues will be critical where first strike mission ratios maybe a large as 20:1 expendable drones to single J-35. Drones could be launched from several points and join together for strike missions and depart in separate directions providing defensive cover for main controlling aircraft. These new CERs will be developed using a proven system/subsystem decomposition methodology combined with effective COTS/GOTS maintenance and support practices and then compiled or recombined into a single platform representative of the envisioned strike mission drone aircraft. Novel aspects of this approach include segregation of recoverable/unrecoverable systems versus highly integrated aircraft systems which allow for significantly more operational scenarios and decreased LCC requirements.