The US wants to turn C-130 transport aircraft into airborne aircraft carriers

The Pentagon plans to add the ability to launch and recover Gremlins drones to its future fleet of C-130 transport aircraft.

Each C-130 can deploy multiple Gremlins UAVs. Graphic: DARPA.

The US Department of Defense is nurturing ambitions to deploy a fleet of small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) from C-130 Hercules transport aircraft to conduct reconnaissance missions and destroy enemy radars. This new feature will turn the C-130 transport aircraft into an airborne aircraft carrier for UAVs in the future, Popular Merchanics reported yesterday.

The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded a contract to General Atomic Aeronautical Systems to develop a family of lightweight UAVs called Gremlins, using key components that have undergone extensive testing. Gremlins will be small, low-cost, and capable of performing a variety of purposes. Each can carry a payload of 27 kg and has a range of 500 km.

In wartime, a C-130 transport plane could fly close to enemy air defenses and then deploy a swarm of Gremlins from its rear hatch. The UAVs would covertly identify targets such as command posts or air defense radars, or force the enemy to fire missiles to shoot them down. The data would then be relayed to the Gremlins, armed with high explosives, to carry out a suicide attack on the target.

In peacetime, squadrons of small UAVs could operate close to the borders of potential adversaries to gather intelligence. The reconnaissance version of the Gremlins could conduct at least 20 missions, with a 24-hour gap between deployments.

Phase three of the project, which includes testing the launch and recovery of Gremlins from C-130 transport aircraft, will be conducted after 2019.

According to VNE