The Naval Research Laboratory Flyrt, or Flying Radar Target, was a small electric-powered

unmanned aerial vehicle An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controlle ...

developed by the

United States Naval Research Laboratory The United States Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) is the corporate research laboratory for the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps. It was founded in 1923 and conducts basic scientific research, applied research, technological ...

to serve as an expendable radar decoy for the defense of

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

ships. Tested in the fall of 1993, it was considered successful but was not ordered into production.

Design and development

Begun in 1991, the Flyrt program was intended to produce an expendable decoy drone, not requiring any new aboardship infrastructure, for the defense of warships against radar-guided antiship missiles. It produced a drone that was of conventional configuration, having a low-mounted, folding wing and a cruciform tail section; an electric motor was mounted in the nose of the aircraft. Launch was via a

rocket booster A booster rocket (or engine) is either the first stage of a multistage launch vehicle, or else a shorter-burning rocket used in parallel with longer-burning sustainer rockets to augment the space vehicle's takeoff thrust and payload capability ...

, providing 1.6 seconds of thrust,Parsch 2006. from the Mark 137 launcher of the

Mark 36 SRBOC The BAE Systems Mark 36 Super Rapid Bloom Offboard Countermeasures Chaff and Decoy Launching System (abbreviated as SRBOC or "Super-arboc") is an American short-range decoy launching system (DLS) that launches radar or infrared decoys from naval ...

system; the use of the Mark 36 launcher put a constraint on the possible size of the drone, which was designed to compact into a package the size of a standard NATO Mark 36 chaff rocket. The tail fins would unfold immediately on launch, while the wing would deploy and motor start after burnout as the aircraft coasted to the

apogee An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. For example, the apsides of the Earth are called the aphelion and perihelion. General description There are two apsides in any el ...

of a ballistic trajectory. The expendable Flyrt carried a

radio repeater A radio repeater is a combination of a radio receiver and a radio transmitter that receives a signal and retransmits it, so that two-way radio signals can cover longer distances. A repeater sited at a high elevation can allow two mobile stations, ...

with two antennae for spoofing enemy radar signals.

Operational history

Following a series of ballistic tests to verify compatibility of the launcher, the Flyrt trial program moved to full-scale tests of the vehicle, with the drone's first flight coming on 9 September 1993. Thirteen drones were constructed for the program, conducted at the NRL's Chesapeake Bay Detachment, which was considered successful; however, no production was undertaken.

Specifications

References

Citations

Bibliography