Remote carriers, or unmanned air vehicles flying alongside other elements, represent an integral pillar of the Franco/German/Spanish Future Combat Air System (FCAS). Their development is being conducted along two lines: large and costly recoverable remote carriers (RRCs), for which Airbus serves as the prime contractor, and expendable remote carriers (ERCs).
MBDA leads the development for the latter and is working toward the first flight of a technology demonstrator in 2029 as part of the FCAS Phase 2. The intended vehicle would weigh around 400 kilograms and measure around 4 meters in length. Operational flight endurance, or “play time,” would amount to about an hour. The ERC will feature fighter-like performance and maneuverability, enabling it to operate alongside manned fighters, or even to emulate them when acting as a decoy. The maneuverability and low radar cross-section make them difficult to engage, although there may be tactical scenarios in which they can be configured to be highly visible to the enemy.
ERCs bring a new dimension to the future air battle. Capable of launching from a wide range of platforms, from fighters through large aircraft, to ships, submarines, and land vehicles, the ERC is a low-cost means of bringing different effects to the battlespace and increasing combat mass.
By keeping the cost of the ERC relatively low, the vehicles can be used in number, allowing for their use with pack tactics to saturate enemy defenses. Because the ERC can carry a wide range of payloads it confuses the enemy regarding its exact purpose and whether it should be engaged or not.
Payloads can include sensors for intelligence-gathering, kinetic effects, electronic warfare, and communications relay systems. The ERCs will be highly connected so that they can “talk” to other elements of the FCAS. Typical missions include suppression/destruction of enemy air defenses, supporting deep strike missions by saturating or jamming air defenses, operating with manned fighters on defensive and offensive counter-air missions, and anti-ship strikes. Selectable degrees of autonomous operation will be incorporated to decrease the workload of the manned aircraft’s crew.
ERCs will be available to “legacy” aircraft such as the Rafale and Typhoon, as well as the FCAS’s planned Next Generation Fighter. Both ERCs and NGF are proceeding together along the broader FCAS timeline, but delays to NGF have been hinted at. For MBDA, the crucial factor in finalizing the ERC design is a definitive size and configuration of the NGF’s internal stores bay, from which the ERC would launch. Plans call for the larger RRC to also be a launch platform.