Everything We Just Learned About The Model 437 Vanguard Technology Demonstrator Jet
The Model 437 Vanguard, the latest experimental aircraft from ‘bleeding-edge’ aerospace firm Scaled Composites, flew for the first time yesterday, and now we have received new details about it, and specifically why this stealthy drone concept has a cockpit, as well as how it was designed and constructed. The process of turning the Vanguard, which first emerged earlier this month, into a reality notably gave parent company Northrop Grumman a valuable opportunity to demonstrate new digital engineering and advanced manufacturing capabilities.
The War Zone delved into these techniques and much more about the crewed Model 437 in an interview with Colin Miller, Vice President for Engineering within Northrop Grumman’s aeronautics sector.
But before we get into that, in a press release yesterday, Scaled Composites provided the following general details about the Model 437 and its capabilities:
“The Model 437 began as a conceptual design, based on the Model 401, exploring a multi-mission low-cost attritable aircraft. The Model 437 Vanguard is a crewed variant of the original concept powered by a single Pratt & Whitney 535 engine with approximately 3,400 pounds of thrust. The aircraft has a wingspan of 41 feet and is 41 feet long with a gross takeoff weight of 10,000 pounds. After completion of envelope expansion, the M437 Vanguard will have a range of approximately 3,000 nautical miles and an endurance of 6 hours. The aircraft can carry up to 2,000 pounds of payload in multiple locations including an internal weapons bay sized to accommodate two AIM-120s.”
Now, with that aside, let’s dive into the interview.
Tyler Rogoway: What’s the relationship between the Model 437 drone concept and the Model 437 manned technology demonstrator? And is this an optionally manned aircraft or a strictly manned aircraft?
Colin Miller: So let me start and I’m going to give you a very carefully worded answer that actually perfectly captures what it [the Model 437 Vanguard] is.
It is purpose-built to support our strategy, and our strategy is centered on being a major contributor to what our customer needs in the autonomous, the man-unmanned teaming, and the optionally piloted vehicle space. We firmly believe that… those areas are tremendously important to the defense portfolio. We have been developing, flying, and delivering autonomous capabilities for eight decades now, and we intend to continue to be a major contributor in that space.
Editor’s note: Miller expressly declined to speak specifically about the capabilities of a potential optionally-manned Model 437 Vanguard versus the unmanned Model 437.
Tyler Rogoway: What benefits came from going with a manned variant over an unmanned one?
Colin Miller: Having a vehicle that can be or is manned offers you the ability to rapidly move through test programs. So it allows you to experiment with new technologies and new ways of doing things with a backup that allows you to take more risk than you would if it were completely unmanned from the start. And I’ll use a couple [of] examples.
One could be, just to do taxi testing on an unmanned platform, typically takes much longer than it takes on a manned platform. Because with the human in the loop, you can respond to unexpected events immediately, using judgment that you [would] have to account for, obviously in the design of your system, and for all possible cases, if you’re doing it strictly unmanned. Another one would be, as you know, as we start thinking about tactical air-to-air applications, you always have to make sure you have safety of flight, that you can avoid mid-airs [mid-air collisions], that you can take over if you happen to be headed towards, let’s say, restricted airspace. So having the ability to have a human in the loop allows you to move through test programs much more quickly.
Tyler Rogoway: Do you see a potential manned variant that could be sold or is this more just focused on the unmanned concept with a crewmember now to accelerate development?
Colin Miller: I can’t say a lot about that, but I can say I do see potential for a manned variant.
Tyler Rogoway: We see this kind of lineage going back to ARES [Scaled Composites Agile Responsive Effective Support aircraft], you know, in the 1980s to the [Model] 401s, which have done a lot of work, it looks like, of all different types. What is the relationship there between the 401s and the 437 and how do you see them either working together, or is it just simply an evolutionary relationship at this point?
Colin Miller: I don’t actually have the history to link those together for you accurately, so I’m not comfortable really commenting on that. One thing I am happy to say is, or comfortable saying, is that these types of demonstrators – 401, 437 – we often find them grow into roles and applications that we hadn’t foreseen when we first developed them. And that’s one of the reasons we developed them the way we do, with the potential to participate in a lot of different mission sets.
Editor’s note: The War Zone has also reached out to Scaled Composites for more information on the Model 401 and Model 437 relationship.
Tyler Rogoway: The relationship between 437 and [the Digital] Pathfinder [project] — are they one and the same or is Pathfinder a larger initiative that 437 is a part of, or vice versa?
Colin Miller: So 437 was an idea before Pathfinder. Pathfinder was using the digital environment to build the wings. So, we built the wings fully in the digital ecosystem in St Augustine, Florida, and we shipped them to Mojave to join 437 at scale. And when they arrived, they fit perfectly the first time, which also speaks to the importance of the digital environment, the accuracy of the models that we’re using, and the integrity of our digital thread. But it was a combination of two efforts. The Pathfinder effort was using the ecosystem to build wings. 437 has evolved to use those wings to do a variety of things that, again, support our broader strategy.
We talked about exercising the digital thread from concept through the design, build, and test. In the build section, we experimented with and had great success with some advanced manufacturing techniques on Pathfinder, as well. And it includes using basically additive-type of techniques, I should say, robotic techniques, to build composites. We call that SCRAM, which stands for Scalable Composite Robotic Additive Manufacturing. And then we also developed and built structural titanium parts using an additive technique called plasma arc directed energy disposition to build a structural rib. And we believe that that’s the first application [of that] in defense aerospace. And it really offers the opportunity, one to cut time, but also significantly cost for our customers. Because titanium, as you know, is, one, very expensive, two, it’s difficult to machine, and, three, generates a tremendous amount of scrap. So the ability to build up just what you need with titanium, using an additive technique, especially for a structural part, is a significant game changer. And that’s something else that we did on Pathfinder that we found to be very effective that we’re excited to bring to our larger programs and to our customers as an advantage.
Tyler Rogoway: Attritable was in the statement from Scaled Composites, and, obviously, this is a broad term, right? What are you targeting for that? Obviously, there’s probably not a dollar figure, I’m sure, at this point, or at least that you can state, but what is in your mind at Scaled and Northrop Grumman, what do you think is attritable, because it seems like that’s a very core part of this whole project?
Colin Miller: You’ll notice it’s [the Model 437 Vanguard] got digital camo on the tails, right? And that is on purpose. And it’s not just because it’s cool, although I think it is, it is because the the main purpose of this effort, the Digital Pathfinder effort, was to build a set of wings for Model 437 stressing our digital engineering environment.
Our digital engineering environment is in the ecosystem that we have been making major investments in for over three years to provide an end-to-end digital engineering ecosystem that operates with a high-integrity, single source of truth that encompasses the whole workflow from concept development and derivation of requirements through design, build, test, and verification, validation of capability, and sustainment in the field. And it builds on the B-21 [Raider stealth bomber’s] success in digital engineering, but we have evolved to a single source of truth in a digital thread that goes through all of those elements of the life cycle. And what we did with Digital Pathfinder was we have found that the best way to learn the requirements and/or shortfalls of a system is by analyzing use cases. And so Digital Pathfinder offered us an opportunity to do a quick project, very short in duration project, using our digital engineering ecosystem to see what works well [and] what needs to be modified.
The purpose of the Digital Pathfinder effort really was to demonstrate and to learn more about our digital engineering environment in a rapid prototype fashion that would allow us to rapidly learn and improve our digital engineering ecosystem. And what we learned, as we did the project, was areas where we could improve usability of our digital engineering ecosystem, areas where we could improve training of our personnel that operate in our ecosystem, and, probably most importantly, really foster and accelerate adoption of [the techniques by] our team to get everyone working in the digital environment with a single source of truth across the system lifecycle. And that allowed us to shift left and do many of the things you do later in development right up front, which resulted in a drastic reduction in engineering rework. Our engineering rework or redesign was less than one percent compared to an industry average of about 15 to 20 percent. It cut our manufacturing rework by more than 50 percent and we got things built right the first time, which is exactly what we intend with our digital engineering environment, which offers a dramatic opportunity to reduce schedule and cost for our customers.
Tyler Rogoway: Based on that, when you say ‘single source of truth,’ from what I understand that means is that everybody has, there’s one basic, hard profile that everybody is attributing to continue the project forward. Is that correct? Like, it’s one design that everybody’s sharing the same information. It’s not federated and then combined later on, is that correct?
Colin Miller: That’s correct.. it’s a collection of models that fully define the air system that are coherent and discrete so that when you go to look at the design of a part, for example, whether you’re doing it to do a loads analysis, a thermal analysis, or replicate it in a digital twin, everyone is using the same data and the same representation of that, to include our customer. So our customer has access and so that they can see not only model data, but they can see performance data by taking the model and simulating it in their environment, or in our simulated environments, and/or they can look at performance data in test and see how it links back to requirements in near real-time.
Tyler Rogoway: And when you say simulation, and we’ve actually done a big piece with Northrop Grumman on what you’re doing in that space, when you say that that includes taking the design forward, or a presumptive design, an iteration, and actually simulating not just basic performance, but maybe applications tactically and that sort of thing in a kind of a sandbox environment. Is it as far as that, before you actually start cutting parts?
Colin Miller: One hundred percent. You got that exactly right, Tyler. So you know, in our digital environment, and all this is documented in the digital environment, the single source of truth with transparency with our customer, we have the concept of operations, [and] we have the basic capability requirements of the system as given to us by the customer. And then we derive a system… basically, how are we going to build that at the system level, the subsystem level, [and] the component level. The model of that using a single source of truth can be, and we do upfront and early, simulated in tactical threat environments, and judge its performance and make design trades. So we do analysis of alternatives with a digital twin of the proposed design in the customer’s approved threat environment… and we iterate that with the customer until we get to the design that meets the capabilities with the other trade-offs fully in view.
Like ‘we could do this, but it might, you know, it may have a weight penalty that would affect this other parameter.’ Or ‘we could do this, and it may offer more speed, but may have this trade-off.’ And by being able to look at that in an approved, representative environment where the airplane is going to be used with the customer, we can rapidly iterate on the design. And our tools, because it’s all in a digital thread, we can evaluate the impacts of designs in hours or days where it used to take months.
Tyler Rogoway: There’s probably a value proposition, too. They get a better idea of an optimized product out of the gate, I’d imagine, then.
Colin Miller: Right. And, again, Digital Pathfinder was intended to demonstrate that and let us basically test the system and learn how to improve it, but we iterated on the design [of the Model 437 Vanguard], and we actually redesigned the wing numerous times. And we could do it so fast that when it came time to build it the first time, we had less than one percent of redesign because we had already perfected it in the digital environment before we started cutting the first part or fastening the first pieces together.
Tyler Rogoway: So Scaled Composites is legendary for really rapid prototyping, in a way, before it was what we know today and experimental exotic aircraft that use pioneering composites. Have you seen the unique synergy between that already established culture and this digital engineering environment?
Colin Miller: It’s a perfect marriage for something like this, and also offers [an] opportunity for great learning, because the ability to rapidly build, to do the things Scaled has done – which are, you know, not only legendary, but I’m just very proud to be associated with that team when they do that – you know, typically, when they’re building something, it’s one of a kind, or maybe two of a kind, and it’s purpose-built for a certain thing and and that has its own capability for demonstration. But for many of the systems today that we’re being asked to build, we do need to demonstrate, we do need to test to make sure we have the right thing, but then we need to scale it for production. And that’s where the power of digital comes in, right? Because if you hand-build something without having a model, and now it’s time to produce, you’ve got to back up and start over. So what this has taught us, and what we’re learning to do through this effort, is to rapid prototype in a digital environment so that when it comes time to scale, you’ve got the models, you’ve got the source of truth, you’ve got some representative operational data from your digital twin that you can then scale.
Similarly, if you want to modify it, once you’ve built it, you’ve got a digital model you can modify. And before you modify it, you can evaluate in the digital environment, the effects of that modification, and look at the effects on the requirements and the effects on your test evaluation plan, all before you go and make the modification. So there’s a synergy there. I will add that, when you’re doing that, when you’re using digital in a rapid prototyping environment, you want to use a slightly different approach and different procedures. And learning how to do that, I think, is really critical for our ability to rapidly turn [out] new designs for evaluation and/or ready for production to the warfighter. And this effort has really helped us learn more about how to do that.
Tyler Rogoway: Is there a percentage or some sort of analogy you can use, how the B-21 was designed similarly to a certain point, or is this taking that to a new level?
Colin Miller: It’s really taken it to a new level, but it builds on that tremendously great success on B 21 digitally. And I would say that, I think about the development cycle we’ve been talking about from concept all the way through validation. B-21 had major sections of that thread, but not yet all connected together. And really this evolution is bringing us to the point where it’s all connected. So a change in any area, everyone operating in the D[igital], which again, includes all stakeholders involved in the lifecycle of the airplane, can immediately see the effects of that change. So that’s what’s different, is really getting it all together for the first time.”
Tyler Rogoway: We always hear great stuff about what digital engineering can do. There’s been some criticism, too, about the hype. What are the limitations? Like, you still have to build something. You do have hardware on the ramp right now to test. So what are the limitations and how do you build them into the process?
Colin Miller: Let me put it this way, [the] key to success is you want to make sure that you take a systems engineering approach to your digital engineering, meaning, what are the requirements of your digital engineering ecosystem? And sticking to those requirements and building a system that does that very, very well without necessarily doing everything that could possibly be done digitally. That keeps your costs down and keeps you focused on really focusing on the key tools that enable this schedule acceleration and this cost avoidance. And then you have to get everybody on the team trained up and adopting, so using the system as the way they do business. Once you get through that transformation where you have the right tools and you have them streamlined and set to the minimum of what you really need to do your core business to get everyone proficient and using them, it’s a real game changer. When you stray from that, that’s where you start to see some limitations.
When it comes to how far can it go, we have an approach to using digital tools in lieu of real-world [ones] that is focused on model validation levels, and we believe this is a novel approach and unique to how we are implementing digital. A model validation level says, for any given model in your system, you look at it and you say, what is the uncertainty of the outcome? So we have some models that are very useful, but their output might be plus or minus 10 percent let’s say. We have other models that are extremely accurate. And of course, at the end of this, the most accurate model is the real-world instantiation of the product, which you mentioned, right? So flight test is always truth data. But right below that, we have models that are almost that good. And what we do with our model validation levels is, we go, for this level of model, we can use it for these purposes. And so for a model that’s almost as good as [a] flight test, but not quite, our intent, with our customers’ concurrence, is some of the test points, you know, with a good risk assessment, could be skipped using that model. But we still have to do some flight tests to make sure that everything’s right.
So, as these digital ecosystems get more and more accurate, more and more real-world [work], especially testing, will be able to be avoided with confidence that we’re safe, compliant, and meeting objectives. And that will really streamline and accelerate time to market and getting it in the hands of our customer. The other thing is that there’s a potential, based on the maturity of some of our models – we have some models that we have gone [and] done the real world test and validated the model, and we have been, you know, close to 1 percent on things like loads and stress – so the model is getting incredibly accurate, and there’s a lot of interest in the community between us, our customers, and really the aerospace industry, of evaluating [and] deciding when we can start using these models to determine airworthiness. We’re not there yet, but the models are showing the potential to be able to demonstrate that, which will be, again, a great unburdening of the process to allow us to reduce costs and get things to the warfighter faster.
Tyler Rogoway: Back to the attritable thing. So, cost is huge, right? So, and then, the attritable aspect is where you could potentially, depending on who defines it, it could potentially be lost on a mission, without it being a horrific financial loss and operational loss, right? How does that play into this? How does that change the dynamic, instead of building a new fighter jet that has to fly for 6,000 hours, and it’s a $100 million investment, how did that all play into the goals and how you approach this new platform?
Colin Miller: You know, it’s an exciting and very important time in aerospace, and particularly in defense aerospace. And we, together with our customers, and specifically the warfighter, we are very attuned to their requirements and what they see as the best approach, how we can support them, and addressing the rapidly evolving threat environment. And, right now, it’s not clear exactly what the next steps are, but it seems probable that it’s a high-low mix, and it’s also a mix of manned and unmanned, and it’s also a mix of manned-unmanned teamed and fully autonomous capabilities.
So our objective is to, and what 437 is going to help us do, is to be able to experiment and rapidly bring to market capabilities in each of those areas. Right now, I’d say I don’t think we have the dot on exactly what the next step is. And what really, I think, the definition of attritable [is] depends on the concept of operations and the mission set that you’re discussing. And we intend to be able to address most, if not all of them, by being able to experiment up and down that spectrum of survivability to attritable, to even expendable for some vehicles, right, that are planned to not come back. We want to be able to provide each of those areas according to our customers’ needs, and we need the ability to experiment, demonstrate, and then rapidly develop into a product in each of those areas.
Tyler Rogoway: Pathfinder will probably evolve and expand now that it’s accomplished this, is that correct?
Colin Miller: It likely will. We may call it something different, but our experimentation and prototyping of our ecosystem will continue, because the fastest and best way to make sure – to your question earlier, ‘Hey, you know, what do you get from digital and you know, what are its limits?’ – the fastest way to find out is to do something. And once you prototype, prototype, prototype, you know, test, test, test your ecosystem by doing things, then you figure out what your real requirements are and how to maximize the performance of that system while minimizing excess waste and non-value-added parts of that ecosystem. So we’re going to continue to experiment and stress it with these rapid projects to stay ahead of the best way to design an ecosystem to support our larger programs.
Tyler Rogoway: Final question and this goes back to the digital environment. It’s all very impressive, and obviously it’s the future, or it’s the present. What do you see as the cybersecurity element of this? I mean, there has to be a major concern when you have all that data being pushed and centralized to a certain extent. Can you just talk even anecdotally about the cybersecurity element to it?
Colin Miller: Absolutely. I would tell you… we have a weapon system cyber security team here at Northrop [Grumman] that I believe is really a differentiator for us. And they are involved in and evaluate all of our programs, and they are involved in new programs from day one, from starting with concept. … We have five different levels of cybersecurity certification that we manage internally with the company, driving all programs towards the highest level. And our approach to autonomy absolutely front and center includes cybersecurity. We believe that you need cost, schedule, performance, and cybersecurity. And if you don’t have cybersecurity, that’s really table stakes. … You gotta do that first before you really worry about the other three. So it’s central to our strategy, and we have a team that does just that, and I believe that we’re industry leading in that capability.
Editor’s note: A big thank you to Northrop Grumman’s Colin Miller for sitting down to talk with us about the 437 and the Digital Pathfinder effort that could have further-reaching ramifications. Also, thanks to Eduardo Salinas, who made this interview possible.
Contact the author: [email protected]
