British air force tests unmanned jetliner, again

Success! Readers may recall our report from last November concerning a British Air Force effort to successfully pilot a BAC 1-11 twin engine jetliner using only a UAV Command and Control Interface (UAVCCI) manufactured by UK-based Qinetic — part of an important test by the Ministry of Defense to see if the UAVCCI could soon be used to control fleets of UAVs from the cockpit of a single fighter jet. “The big burning question at the MoD is how to operate UAVs in attack missions in the future,” said Kevin Williams, project manager at Qinetiq. “We wanted to see if a fast-jet pilot, flying a Tornado perhaps, could control a pack of four UAVs in deep, target attack situations while still doing his own job.” At the time we noted that the next step was to see if the UAVCCI could fly the Tornado fighter jet and several simulated UAVs simultaneously, all while controlling the airliner as well. Now we can report that the latter effort was a success.

In the recent tests over the Bristol Channel, the BAC 1-11 passenger jet was first flown by its regular crew before being handed over to the control of a the nearby Tornado, which then instructed the commercial jet and the three virtual UAVs — located on computers inside the BAC 1-11 — towards various ground targets. Squadron Leader Andy Blythe described the experience:

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The trial was a complete success. The BAC 1-11 took off first and and I caught up with it 30 minutes later. I took over and operated the jet at between 14,000 and 20,000ft. I found the UAVs easy to control. First I directed them to do a sweep over the battlefield to identify vehicles and send back their images to me in the cockpit. Once I had classified the targets in order of priority, and got the UAVs to make a second sweep to check for friendlies, I gave consent for the UAVs to destroy the targets, which they did and then made a final sweep for battle damage assessment.