View from the Labs

Past Informs the Present

By CAPT George Galdorisi, USN (Ret.)

Our Rotor Review editors have teed up a great topic that blends our rotary wing history, our present operations, and our future possibilities. The tack I’d like to take in this column is technology (no surprise there). As we see technology moving forward for manned and unmanned systems in our rotary wing world, it is worth saying that while we should embrace new technology that can help support our multiple missions, we should also be “smart buyers” and not get all liquored up with every shiny new object that comes along.

While there are many positive and negative examples of embracing new technologies, one that stands out for me, and likely for most rotary wing aviators, aircrewmen, and maintainers, is an unmanned system called DASH, which stands for Drone AntiSubmarine Helicopter. If there were ever a case where “aspiration” didn’t meet performance, DASH was likely the poster child.

Walking this back a bit, the U.S. Navy has a rich history of Unmanned Systems (UxS) development. During the early years of the last century, the Navy and the Army worked together to attempt to develop unmanned aerial torpedoes. However, this was a bridge-too-far given the state of technology during those years and the project was ultimately abandoned. Other attempts to introduce unmanned systems into the Navy and Marine Corps occurred in fits and starts throughout the first half of the last century, but these were met with limited success.

As the United States became involved in the Vietnam War during the early 1960s, the Navy renewed its efforts to find a way to field unmanned systems to meet urgent operational needs. At that time, all sea-based aviation was concentrated on the decks of Navy aircraft carriers and large-deck amphibious assault ships. Surface combatants (cruisers, destroyers and frigates) had no air assets at their disposal.

The solution was to adapt a technology that had been in development since the late 1950s to field the QH-50 DASH. In April 1958, the Navy awarded Gyrodyne Company a contract to modify its RON-1 Rotorcycle, a small coaxial rotor helicopter, to explore its use as a remote-controlled drone capable of operating from the decks of small ships. The Navy initially bought nine QH-50A and three QH-50B Drone Helicopters. By 1963, the Navy approved large-scale production of the QH-60C, with the ultimate goal of putting these DASH units on all of its 240 FRAM-I and FRAM-II Destroyers.

In January 1965, the Navy began to use the QH-50D as a reconnaissance and surveillance vehicle in Vietnam. Equipped with a real-time TV camera, a film camera, a transponder for better radar tracking, and a telemetry feedback link to inform the remote control operator of drone responses to his commands, the QH50D began to fly “SNOOPY” missions from destroyers off the Vietnamese coast. These missions had the purpose of providing over-the-horizon target data to the destroyer’s five-inch batteries. Additionally, DASH was outfitted with ASW torpedoes to deal with the rapidly growing Soviet submarine menace, the idea being that DASH would attack the submarine with Mk-44 homing torpedoes or Mk57 nuclear depth charges at a distance that exceeded the range of submarine’s torpedoes.

QH-50 DASH

But by 1970, DASH operations ceased fleet-wide. Although DASH was a sound concept, the Achilles heelof the system was the electronic remote control system. The lack of feedback loop from the drone to the controller, as well as its low radar signature, accounted for eighty percent of all drone losses. While apocryphal to the point of being a bit of an urban legend, it was often said the most common call on the Navy fleet’s 1MC general announcing systems during the DASH-era was, “DASH Officer, Bridge,” when the unfortunate officer controlling the DASH was called to account for why “his” system had failed to return to the ship and crashed into the water.

Compared to today’s technologies used to control unmanned systems, the technology of the 50s, 60s and even the 70s was primitive at best. In many cases, what was being attempted with drones was, literally, a bridge too far. After the Vietnam War, the Navy continued to experiment with unmanned systems. In the 1980s, I was involved with testing Pioneer unmanned aircraft launched and recovered from USS New Orleans (LPH 11). Sadly, the technology was still primitive, and we lost two of the three Pioneer unmanned aircraft we took to sea during a one-week test event.

For one of the most complete descriptions of the U.S. Navy’s DASH Program, see an article by one of our fellow rotary wing aviators, Benjamin Armstrong, “Unmanned Naval Warfare: Retrospect and Prospect,” Armed Forces Journal, December 20, 2013, accessed at: http:// armedforcesjournal.com/unmanned-navalwarfare-retrospect-prospect/.

I think you see the point. The Navy wanted DASH and Pioneer so badly, that they bet on technology that was too immature to meet the mission requirements for these systems. The immediate results were clear, but these technology speed bumps also slowed down development of other promising technologies as Navy officials experienced buyer's remorse, and became skeptical of unmanned systems of any kind.

As you all know, by the turn of the century, the technology to control unmanned systems had finally matured to the point that the U.S. Navy believed it could successfully field unmanned systems in all domains—air, surface, and subsurface—to meet a wide variety of operational needs. As with many disruptive and innovative ideas, the Chief of Naval Operations Strategic Studies Group (CNO SSG) was tasked to attempt to determine the feasibility of introducing unmanned systems into the Navy inventory.

In 2022, we have a number of unmanned systems – Fire Scout, Triton, Stingray, and others – in the Naval Aviation inventory. This is a good start. That said, one of the key takeaways of the 2021 NHA Symposium came during the Flag Panel when the Air Boss noted that 40% of Naval Aviation would be unmanned by 2035. This is a huge sea change and we should anticipate more potential UAS coming down the line. We just need to be prepared to be smart buyers.