{"id":14161,"date":"2018-12-15T00:57:39","date_gmt":"2018-12-15T00:57:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2018\/12\/15\/replacing-the-shadow-is-a-vtol-order\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T20:05:37","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T20:05:37","slug":"replacing-the-shadow-is-a-vtol-order","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/newsletters\/unmanned-systems\/2018\/12\/15\/replacing-the-shadow-is-a-vtol-order\/","title":{"rendered":"Replacing the Shadow is a VTOL order"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Where Army aviation\u2019s going, it doesn\u2019t need roads. Or runways, or plains, or any of the other vital-yet-unreliable stretches of flat, open ground. As the Army looks to replace its venerable RQ-7 Shadow drones, it\u2019s looking at designs that can perform the same mission, but without a reliance on runways. One such design in contention is the V-BAT, a vertical-takeoff and landing drone designed in collaboration by MartinUAV and Northrop Grumman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cRunway independence became a desire for a special operations and all the other services because of the austere environments ever find themselves in,\u201d said Heath Niemi, vice president global sales and development MartinUAV. \u201cAnd the limitations of range based on having to be confined to a runway to return to.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To that end, V-BAT is a tailsitting VTOL plane powered by a two-stroke engine that can ingest heavy fuel or a gasoline\/oil mix. \u201cV\u201d stands for vertical, but BAT is just \u201cbat,\u201d an appreciation for either the flying mammals or superheroes inspired by the flying mammals and not anything else. Weighing in at a maximum of 84 pounds, with a wingspace of 9 feet and a length of 8 feet, the V-BAT is in a medium place, larger that the biggest small drones and much smaller than the smallest big drones. It has a top speed of just over 100 mph, a ceiling of 15,000 feet, and has a range of over 350 miles (limited by fuel) or over 60 miles (limited by the telemetry).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cYou can hand off control to a forward element and as long as they have have some sort of a ground control station and antenna,\u201d said Niemi. \u201cThey could take control of that drone, visit the local area and pass it back or pass it on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The concept is that, while the drone\u2019s signal may be limited in range, a single drone could provide reconnaissance for several units. Launching the V-BAT can be done with as few as two people, and controlling it in flight can be done by a single person with a control station. Piloting is done through software and waypoint navigation, so a tablet configured to run the program and set up with an antenna that can transmit the commands is really all that\u2019s needed. The lack of specialized equipment needed to launch or recover the V-BAT emphasizes this flexibility, making a drone designed to operate as easily from the deck of a ship as the back of a truck or a small clearing in some distant woods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cMost drones in this size are allocated for brigades and we believe that [V-BAT] is for battalion and below, maybe even company level,\u201d said Niemi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In addition to participating in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/unmanned\/2018\/04\/20\/v-bat-drone-to-challenge-us-army-allies-in-germany-based-exercise\/\" target=_blank>Army exercises<\/a>, the Marine Corps is exploring the V-BAT for its needs, in part because of the autonomous landing capability and in part because it can \u201chover and stare,\u201d rotating to vertical while held aloft by its ducted fan. The orientation of the V-BAT makes the hovering somewhat unusual, like a matchstick with wings standing on end. The location of the sensors in the forward nose-cone could also impose some limitations on where it can look when hovering, but aesthetics and learning curve aside, the ability to travel fixed wing but hover in place on missions is present and novel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ducted fans, especially gasoline powered ducted fans, are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.globalsecurity.org\/intell\/systems\/rq-16.htm\" target=_blank>notoriously noisy<\/a>, which is a concern for the V-BAT during takeoff, landing and any hovering, though Niemi suggests the noise and power usage are both greatly reduced when the V-BAT is in forward flight as a fixed-wing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As the Army looks to replace its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/land\/2018\/07\/16\/replacing-shadow-unmanned-aircraft-could-be-quick-win-for-army\/\" target=\"_blank\">aging fleet of Shadow drones<\/a>, V-BAT is set to participate in Future Tactical UAS, the Army\u2019s fly-off to determine what, exactly, it needs in a new drone and if there are any existing models that can perform the role.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Designed to operate without runways or special recovery equipment, the V-BAT wants to go almost anywhere infantry can go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":25986,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":167,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[36,27,167],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3144],"class_list":["post-14161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsletters","category-unmanned","category-unmanned-systems"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"QL7VWCI6RVBPRHE2RSRMHS2HMQ","arc_canonical_url":"\/newsletters\/unmanned-systems\/2018\/12\/15\/replacing-the-shadow-is-a-vtol-order\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Replacing the Shadow is a VTOL order - Defense News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Designed to operate without runways or special recovery equipment, the V-BAT wants to go almost anywhere infantry can go.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Replacing the Shadow is a VTOL order\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Designed to operate without runways or special recovery equipment, the V-BAT wants to go almost anywhere infantry can go.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/newsletters\/unmanned-systems\/2018\/12\/15\/replacing-the-shadow-is-a-vtol-order\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Defense News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-12-15T00:57:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-08-07T20:05:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kelsey D. Atherton\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Kelsey D. 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