Boeing developing new focus on unmanned combat plane

ST. LOUIS -- On the day Boeing Co. lost the contract to build the Joint Strike Fighter, reactions across the city ran from shock to panic to despair.

What a difference a Pentagon budget year can make.

Sure, the 2003 fiscal year budget proposed by President Bush last month allocates just under $3.5 billion to the JSF project and winner Lockheed Martin Corp. -- and that's just a sliver of the $200 billion or more to come from the largest Defense Department contract in history.

But tucked away as a line item a few pages later is $91 million for the Air Force's UCAV, or Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle. And that small chunk of Pentagon change has Jerry Daniels, president of Boeing's St. Louis-based Military Aircraft and Missile Systems division, smiling again.

"It's the first true unmanned combat aircraft in the world," Daniels said of the Boeing designed and built UCAV. "That's the future of aviation. That's the future of St. Louis."

'Now we're serious'

While the numbers might not reflect it, planners at the Pentagon agree. During budget briefings with reporters, the Pentagon made an effort to show its excitement for the Boeing project.

"Although there was, you know, minimal UCAV funding in the past, it was so minimal as to be trivial," an unnamed senior defense official said in a budget briefing. "Now we're serious about it."

Despite the apparent excitement of both Boeing and defense officials, just how serious decision makers at the Defense Department are about UCAV remains to be seen, said Richard Aboulafia, an aviation analyst at the Teal Group in Fairfax, Va. He said there is still a prejudice against unmanned vehicles inside the Pentagon.

"Some times, hot air-to-action ratios reach new highs," Aboulafia said. "This is kind of one of them. But having said that, there is definitely an upward curve."

Both the Pentagon and the White House have touted the success of unmanned aircraft in Afghanistan during operations against al-Qaida and Taliban troops. President Bush mentioned unmanned vehicles specifically during his radio address the week before releasing his budget proposal.

But those unmanned aircraft are primarily propeller-driven drones used for reconnaissance. The Predator model made famous after receiving credit for destroying an al-Qaida leadership compound near Kabul had been modified by the CIA to fire a Hellfire missile.

Changing the game

Boeing is designing the UCAV, however, as primarily a tactical aircraft. It also comes with a distinct advantage over existing jet fighters -- no pilot to lose in combat.

"The citizens of this planet have become totally intolerant of casualties of war, and certainly prisoners of war," Daniels said. "Unmanned vehicles are game changers."

Unveiled in St. Louis two years ago, the stubby X-45A lacks the standard tail found on most aircraft and is mostly flat. An engine intake sits where the cockpit normally would be. But the 8,000-pound X-45A is expected to carry 3,000 pounds of weaponry, making it twice as efficient as the typical manned fighter.

A Boeing spokesman said indications from the Defense Department suggest the Air Force wants its UCAV sooner than first scheduled, with one or two initial vehicles ready for operational assessment by 2008.

"When we finish the software, it will be ready to fly," said Mike Heinz, Boeing's vice president of unmanned systems. "But it is tough to tell when that first flight will be."

Contracts end in 2012

Heinz's position and the unmanned systems unit were created after Boeing lost the JSF contract. The former deputy manager of Boeing's JSF effort, Heinz was among the executives who lamented the decision for reasons beyond the loss of business.

With no new jet fighter programs in the Pentagon's plans -- meaning no new contracts to bid on, no new jets to design from scratch -- Boeing made much of the unique skills of its current employees "perishing." Its "legacy" contracts with the Defense Department, such as one to build the F/A-18 Super Hornet, run out around 2012.

Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., among others, tried to address that concern by pushing for Boeing to share some JSF production with Lockheed. But that's something Daniels said his company is no longer interested in.

"There is nothing there for Boeing," Daniels said. "I was not willing to shop our engineers and take table scraps."