Crash of Spy Plane Jeopardizes Funding

Engineers lost more than their only flying model of a stealth spy aircraft when the DarkStar drone smashed into the runway on takeoff at Edwards Air Force Base last week.

The crash could ultimately create a funding crisis that might threaten the entire program. In past eras of lush defense budgets, lawmakers might have been more forgiving of a costly experiment gone wrong. But defense experts are wondering whether the DarkStar’s image has been tarnished as its makers brace to fight for continued funding for the program.

“It’s a lean time for budgets in general,” said Wolfgang Demisch, aerospace analyst of BT Securities in New York. “Any time there’s blood in the water, the sharks will circle.”

Since 1995, about $124 million has been spent on developing the Tier III Minus unmanned aerial vehicle, nicknamed the “DarkStar.” President Clinton has requested $17.4 million for the system in his 1997 budget.

The saucer-shaped drone with a 69-foot wingspan has an operating radius of 500 nautical miles and is designed for use at altitudes above 45,000 feet. It can stay in the air for eight hours without refueling.

Only 5 feet tall, the aircraft is a component in long-range military strategy to deploy unmanned planes for risky duty behind enemy lines.

In its first test flight March 29, the vehicle reached a planned altitude of 5,000 feet and completed all planned maneuvers during its 20-minute flight. Engineers effusively proclaimed the test a “99 out of 100.”

But since Tuesday’s accident, prototype developers Lockheed/Martin Skunk Works and Boeing Defense and Space Group would only say that no one was injured in the crash. An investigation team is being assembled.

U.S. Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-Santa Clarita) said an investigation could prove critical to the program’s funding. Fellow lawmakers, he said, might be less inclined to offer support if the problem were somehow structural.

“I’m anxious to find out what went wrong,” McKeon said. “Is it a problem with the concept or is it a fluke?”

Experimental aircraft have been known to suffer what Marine Col. Mike Fagan, chief of staff for the Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office, called “mishaps.”

But the drones have been beset by problems with reliability--difficulties that are not alleviated as the vehicles themselves get larger and more complicated.

One precursor to the DarkStar, for example, came back from high-altitude flights with frozen controls, BT Securities’ Demisch said.

Other drones have faced different technical hurdles. The Predator, an unmanned aerial vehicle deployed to help U.S. troops in Bosnia, has the ability to fly at 25,000 feet.

But it was sent to Bosnia before it had been fitted with radar systems that would help it fly above the dense Bosnian cloud cover. One was disabled by groundfire and then deliberately crashed into a mountain; another was flying at 5,000 feet when shot down.

Pilots can react to unanticipated problems in the air, an adjustment tough for the drones to make.

But the DarkStar has been created to overcome those obstacles. “It’s pressing the edge of the envelope in software and dynamic flight capabilities,” said one defense insider. “They’re trying to develop software that can make myriad adjustments . . . that a pilot can do.”

“Over time, there’s no question that unmanned systems are going to be increasingly essential,” Demisch said. “In these days of instant communications, the political costs of losing pilots is going to be high.”

Other experts, such as John J. Shanahan, a retired vice admiral who directs the Center for Defense Information in Washington, D.C., says cutting-edge technology like the DarkStar could provide intelligence unmatched by satellites, unless they happen to be “passing over at the right time.”

The DarkStar is a platform for imagery sensors that take digital images--a kind of video camera in the sky. It can sweep an area as vast as the Mojave Desert in a single mission.

Congress has thought highly of the program, including $18 million in last year’s appropriation to accelerate the development of a third DarkStar drone. The drones ultimately will have a $10-million projected cost.

President Clinton’s proposed defense budget includes $309 million for unmanned aerial vehicles.

If momentum can carry it, DarkStar may emerge unscathed.

“Obviously it is disappointing,” Demisch said of the crash. “[But] I would be surprised if it were more than a bump in their [engineers’] road.”