Navy program at center of drone survivability debate.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew

U.S. military unmanned aircraft for the past decade have carried out reconnaissance and strike missions in "friendly," or permissive, skies.

The drone age began as the nation fought in lands without modern air defense systems, which could easily shoot down a slow-moving Predator.

Those days are winding down, and a new era of conflict with peer or near-peer competitors may be around the corner. So too are at least two new unmanned aircraft in development that could be stealthy enough to evade enemy radars, deliver payloads and glean intelligence behind enemy lines.

One is a top secret Air Force program, the RQ-180. The public knows little about the aircraft other than what was revealed in an Aviation Week story published in 2013.

The Navy's unmanned carrier-launched airborne surveillance and strike (UCLASS) aircraft, still in the early stages of development, also has long-term requirements to carry out missions deep in an adversary's territory.

Whether it will ever be able to do so was a hotly debated subject at a recent House Armed Services Committee seapower and projection forces subcommittee hearing.

Several think tank analysts said the Navy was making a grave mistake by choosing endurance over range, payload and stealth.

A requirement that the UCLASS fly for 14 consecutive hours without refueling would mean more space devoted to fuel tanks and less to weapons, sensors and stealth.

What is at stake is the very future of aircraft carriers "for decades to come," said Robert Martinage, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. "The Navy is aiming well off the mark."

Shawn Brimley, executive vice president and director of studies at the Center for a New American Security, said UCLASS "fails to add any real striking power to the carrier air wing." And it duplicates many of the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms already available.

China, the nation most often mentioned as a near-peer competitor by the analysts and committee members, has a goal of pushing U.S. aircraft carriers farther away from its shores. To do so, it is developing various anti-ship weapons. "If we don't have a capability to project more than 1,000 nautical miles, we lose the ability to project power," Brimley testified.

Bryan McGrath, managing director of FerryBridge Group LLC, a defense consulting firm, took the seriousness of the issue one step further.

"I believe we have reached a 'For want of a nail, a kingdom is lost'...