Eglin Air Force Base, Florida — In the open space of Eglin Range, known as the B-70, a group of Air Force field officers and black-shirted innovators huddled together atop an 8-pound model aircraft, racing against a production deadline.
A group of officers and innovators known as the Black Phoenix set a goal to design, build, build and fly an unmanned aerial system in less than 24 hours. At about 22.5 hours, the team secured the tail section and finally the propeller. The final step in a journey that began more than six months ago was getting the UAS into the air.
The officers began the project as part of a Blue Horizons fellowship. Blue Horizons is the Air Force Strategic and Technical Mission Center that serves as a think tank and incubator that promotes unconventional thinking and processes on Air Force issues of strategic impact.
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The Black Phoenix team is one of five teams finalizing their projects after completing a one-year fellowship.
The three-person team was tasked with evaluating how to quickly adapt small UAS, technology and payloads depending on needs and circumstances.
“Small UAS are becoming a new warfighting capability,” said Col. Dustin Thomas, Blue Horizons fellow and Black Phoenix team member. “However, the Air Force cannot quickly change these aircraft depending on the threat environment or quickly deploy new technologies to meet the requirements of specific missions. The goal of our project is to find ways to change this.”
To take the project from theoretical to practical, the team turned to Titan Dynamics, a small aerospace company focused on rapid, cost-effective UAS design and development.
“We looked for a young, smart, new startup company willing to take big risks.” said Lt. Col. Jordan Atkins, a Black Phoenix member. “We could not be more impressed by their ability to create this miracle in just two months.”
The team used Titan's software automated design software to create an aerodynamic UAS body based on weight, power, dimensions and payload in less than 10 minutes. That design code is fed into a 3D printer to create lightweight UAS body parts. Once all the parts are printed, the team builds a newly built UAS specifically designed for the mission parameters.
Black Phoenix adopted this method and first tested it in Southwest Asia with Task Force-99 in March with some success. We then brought that test data and lessons learned to Eglin for final field testing. They found a proving ground for autonomy data and AI experiments in the Air Force's Chief Data and AI Office, which aims to accelerate the development and experimentation of programs like the Black Phoenix project.
“Eglin is trying to create a space where we can test small UAS and new technology capabilities very quickly,” Thomas said. “Historically, the Air Force has been relatively slow to apply and test these technologies, and Eglin is working to change that paradigm. We wanted to collaborate with them and be part of a paradigm shift.
In support of the ADAX test site, the 413th Flight Test Squadron's Autonomy Prime flight regularly flies autonomous UAS, and new aircraft and autonomy customers come to Eglin to test the technology.
During the week of Black Phoenix at Eglin, the team tested six autonomous aircraft using the rapid create, build, and fly method for a variety of missions, including an 8-pound personnel recovery UAS that delivered supplies to simulated airmen behind enemy lines.
Sometimes the aircraft flew successfully, and sometimes it crashed while pushing the perimeter. Both success and failure were part of Black Phoenix's goal to gather research on the feasibility of rapidly generated UAS ideas.
What they discovered was that regardless of flight or crash, the internal autonomous hardware and internal payload were virtually undamaged. Rebuilding and trying again meant reprinting the external UAS structure at a cost of about $20 to $50.
“We took a big risk this week by flying a number of new aircraft for the first time, but the risk is also low because these aircraft are all built from commercial off-the-shelf components, so the financial investment is small,” he said. This is Lt. Col. Peter Dyrud, a member of the Black Phoenix team.
After testing, the Black Phoenix team will compile its findings and present its evaluation of the study to the Secretary of the Air Force and the Air Force Chief of Staff in May.