An Uncrewed Spartan - 10 tonnes and 2500 NM

[Kirkhill]

Startup Aims To Deliver An Autonomous Airlifter For USAF By 2028 | Aviation Week Network

Atropos Group unveils the Tacit Spear concept for an autonomous airlifter and a blueprint for delivering the large aircraft in a few years.

aviationweek.com

A Canadian opportunity? Something for DeHavilland and Bombardier to consider for domestic use?

The advent of collaborative combat aircraft (CCA)—a family of largely autonomous, jet-powered combat aircraft capable of a wide range of military missions—changed their approach. By basing these CCAs on small airstrips in southern Japan and the northern Philippines, the air war planners found a disruptive new weapon to threaten Chinese air superiority over the Taiwan Strait.

However, a summary produced by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, which hosted the wargame, found one problem with that plan: The Air Force lacks an airlift fleet that could resupply the forward bases, which would lie well within the engagement zone of Chinese missiles. Even if enough Lockheed Martin C-130s and Boeing C-17s could be spared for the task, sending them so deep into hostile territory would incur severe risks.

Meet the Tacit Spear, a concept from the Atropos Group, a two-month-old startup based in Arlington, Virginia.

It is an autonomous aircraft designed by Darold Cummings—a former Northrop Grumman aircraft configuration lead and a current Aviation Week contributor—to deliver a Leonardo C-27J Spartan-like payload of about 20,000 lb. with a cargo bay large enough to carry three military-standard 463L pallets. Air-dropped munitions, including mines, are also a payload option. It would come with a ferry range of 2,500 nm, which is long enough to self-deploy to staging bases in the Pacific. And its twin-turbofan, embedded engines and swept wings can take off and land from unimproved airfields as short as 5,000 ft.

With sharps chines down the upper fuselage, forward-swept inlets and canted tails, the Tacit Spear is designed to operate in hostile airspace. The concept would add a new capability in air mobility, not a direct replacement for existing aircraft derived from commercial models.

As the timeline for the unveiling suggests, Atropos’ founders are focused on speed. The Tacit Spear is scheduled for a first flight in less than three years. Atropos also plans to develop more products, including commercial variants of the uncrewed airlifter.

Development of a large, uncrewed cargo aircraft is a new concept in the U.S. defense industry, but not abroad. In the past 12 months, China has revealed two uncrewed logistics aircraft—it unveiled the Air White Whale W5000 in November and flew the larger Aerospace CH UAV Co. Ltd. CH-YH1000 for the first time in May.

A Chinese uncrewed Twin Otter?