Northrop Grumman says the U.S. Navy is interested in giving its EA-18G Growler jamming aircraft the ability to use modified cluster bomb canisters to deploy and control their own drone swarms to launch broader electronic attacks and collect signals intelligence data. Any fighter jet or bomber could conceivably carry the disposable unmanned aircraft, referred to both as Dash X and Remedy, as well, which might be able to take on covert surveillance and even strike duties in the future. On Oct. 26, 2017, Northrop Grumman conducted a flight test of the drone at Foothills Regional Airport in Morganton, North Carolina, but launched it from the ground rather than a canister attached to another aircraft. Once the Dash X was in flight, a modified de Havilland Dash-8 twin engine turboprop then successfully established a link to the drone, directing its activities and processing electronic signal information the unmanned aircraft was collecting. The next phase of the project will be to demonstrate the complete airdrop concept, which involves a cluster bomb-like shell containing one of the pilotless planes.

The Office of Naval Research (ONR), the Naval Air Systems Command’s F/A-18 and EA-18G program office, and the Office of Secretary of Defense are supporting the Virginia-headquartered defense contractor’s work on the Dash X, which has a wingspan of 12 feet, a top speed of just 70 miles per hour, and can fly for approximately 10 hours. The small aviation firm VX Aerospace, which specializes in composite materials and is also involved in the program, initially developed the drone in partnership with North Carolina State University and the University of South Carolina as part of an earlier ONR-funded project. The Navy appears most interested in adding this drone “bomb” to its Block II upgrade program for the EA-18G, John Thompson, Northrop Grumman’s campaign director for the company’s airborne command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) division, told reporters during a tour of a facility near Baltimore, Maryland. “I think that long-range teaming is where the highest probability of fielding this is going to go,” he added.

USN A US Navy EA-18G Growler, which could carry and then team up with air-dropped Dash X drones.

Though Thompson did not elaborate on exactly how the Navy was considering blending the Growlers and Dash X together, it’s not hard to imagine the two aircraft working as a manned-unmanned team. The drone could extend the range and breadth of EA-18G’s capabilities, fanning out and searching for enemy radars, communication nodes, and other electronic signal emitters. The goal is obviously to feed at least basic information back to the controlling aircraft to help the crew find and prioritize targets and just give them a better sense of the overall battlefield environment and its electronic order of battle. Depending on the equipment that can fit inside a single Dash X, it might be able to act as a decoy, generating signals that make it look like a larger threat to air defense systems, or even conduct their own distributed electronic or cyber attacks, as well. “We did a demonstration where these [the Dash X] flew forward, looked for an unlocated RF [radio frequency] object, they went out and they found that vehicle,” Thompson told the assembled journalists. “They listened for the whispering and they pulled it back to this test airframe and they were able to detect, identify, and geolocate.” And though Northrop Grumman hasn’t yet settled on a final design, the company provided a picture of a mockup of the bomb-like shell looks almost identical to the U.S. military’s standardized SUU-64/B, -65/B and -66/B Tactical Munitions Dispensers, which can hold variety of different cluster munitions. According to Northrop Grumman, after release from the aircraft, whatever the eventual container used will be, it will break open and the Dash X will fall out, slowed by a parachute before its wings unfold and its motor starts.

US Army A Tactical Munition Dispenser, a modified version of which might be able to hold a single Dash X drone.