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Drone literate

capability it is still a small slice of the High-end these may be but with entire Army is going to be – we call
Army and I think it would be a single ‘With the a unit cost under $2,000, they are it drone literate. The Chief wants the
aircraft,” he said. a whole lot cheaper than dedicated Army to be drone literate.”
That will likely involve a shortlist rollout of our military systems like Black Hornet. However, these inexpensive
and a contest, akin to that for the The Army is buying around 300, so commercial drones come with a
Army’s new combat reconnaissance quads, the total procurement cost is very modest problem. Like many advanced
vehicle under Project LAND 400 by military standards. If some are lost consumer products, these are
Phase 2. entire Army in the cause of useful experimentation, designed to provide feedback to the
“I don’t think we will be able to it won’t be the end of the world. manufacturer, including data on
down-select to just one product. There is going to These will go to permanent and where flown and even thumbnail
will be multiple products that can reserve units and even cadets. images of what it has seen.
meet the specification. Certainly the be drone “Over the next 12-24 months we Would certain Chinese agencies
contemporary Defence approach is to can give them out. It only takes one be interested in data produced by
run a competition,” he said. literate.’ day to train a soldier in how to use Australian Defence Force operated
Whatever is chosen, it will need to these. Let them experiment for two drones flying around Australian
be powered by a heavy fuel engine. LTCOL KEIRIN JOYCE years and come back to us. The next defence facilities? You’d have to think
The Navy draws the line at anything time we do some major acquisition they might.
using volatile fuels aboard its for military-grade UAVs we will have However LTCOL Joyce said
amphibious ships. a really good database of new uses,” no data was sent back to the
LTCOL Joyce said with current and he said. manufacturer if the devices never
connected to the internet. They were
configurable to ensure this never
occurred.
As well, DST had conducted a full
cyber vulnerability assessment.
“We are very confident that these
are safe systems,” he said.
In the fast-moving drone world,
some concepts which once seemed far-
fetched are close to mainstream.
One is the resupply UAV. In
Afghanistan a pair of US Marine
Corps-operated unmanned Kaman
K-MAX unmanned helicopters
delivered more than 2,000 tonnes of
cargo to remote bases. One crashed,
apparently because of a wind shift,
showing the technology wasn’t then
perfect.
But these are getting better all the
time, pushed on by companies such as
Amazon and its plans for a swarm of
small UAVs to deliver its products.
LTCOL Joyce said any supply
mission conducted by a UAV would
planned UAS, Army believes there The US Marine Corps used two “We are basically running a mean an expensive MRH-90 or
is a pretty good range of options for unmanned K-MAX helicopters chatroom where all these soldiers can Chinook helicopter and its crew were
combat applications. for resupply missions in contribute. They can say we tried this not at risk.
But what about all the other Afghanistan. lockheed martin and it worked or it didn’t work. People “We think there are cost and
possible applications which might only can share ideas.” mission efficiencies in making that an
emerge with some experimentation? That opens the way for some unmanned platform. Once we explore
“This program is all about finding interesting applications. One the ethical and moral boundaries, if
out what we don’t know about drones,” possibility is in disaster relief. In the you are dropping off 150 kilograms of
he said. wake of a major cyclone, whether in supplies, you have the capacity to lift
“How would a field warehouse use Australia or somewhere in the region, out a wounded person,” he said.
one, how would a transport squadron, two-person Army teams could fan out “It is not the kind of capability
how about military police, how would across the affected area, using their that you would use for mundane
a forward armament and refuelling small drones to conduct assessments administrative tasks. A truck is always
point?” of the damage. going to be cheaper for the mundane.
“How could all these non-combat That’s not something that could But for urgent requirements where
but still very important units out on be asked of civil police or State you want to be able to get somebody
the battlefield use drones?” Emergency Service members but it somewhere very fast, you want to fly
The answer is give everyone in the could of soldiers, trained to live and them, and a casevac UAV is certainly
Army the opportunity to experiment, operate in austere conditions. something we are interested in.”
using readily-available commercial “The potential to get into drone LTCOL Joyce said plenty of other
quadcopters, specifically the Chinese- operation is getting bigger and bigger. nations, including the US, UK and
made DJI Phantom 4 Pro Plus. With the rollout of our quads, the Israel, were looking at this capability,

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