Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md.
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The Navy and Marine Corps announced Initial Operational Capability (IOC) for the TRV-150C Tactical Resupply Unmanned Aircraft System (TRUAS) Oct. 27 at Marine Corps Base Hawaii.
The first six production systems arrived last week at the Marines Third Littoral Logistics Battalion (LLB-3) in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, which means that LLB-3 is sufficiently manned, trained and ready to deploy with the TRV-150C.
“This achievement means the fleet is ready and fully capable of deploying and using this game-changing system, which will enable Marines to perform forward deployed contested logistics missions,” said Gregg Skinner, Navy and Marine Corps Small Tactical Unmanned Aircraft Systems program manager (PMA-263), whose Unmanned Logistics Systems-Air (ULS-A) team oversees the TRUAS program.
Prior to declaring IOC, support staff from the Air Test and Evaluations Squadron Two Four (UX-24) from Naval Air Warfare Center Webster Outlying Field in Maryland arrived at MCB Hawaii along with an instructor from the Training and Logistics Support Activity Pacific, to conduct final operator qualification with LLB-3. After reviewing the differences between prototype and production systems, the trainers and operators successfully completed 36 training flights to ensure that the unit was ready to deploy.
PMA-263 awarded the production contract for the TRV-150C in April 2023 following a rapid prototyping initiative that brought the system from inception to the fleet in less than four years.
“This was a total team effort in accomplishing this milestone in record time,” Skinner said. “Special thanks to the PMA263 Team, Training and Logistics Support Activity Pacific, Air Test and Evaluations Squadron Two Four (UX-24), and the Survice Engineering Company (TRUAS prime contractor) for their hard work and dedication aimed at getting this much needed Force Design 2023 capability in the hands of the Warfighter.”
TRUAS is a land based, autonomous UAS that provides organic logistics to Marine squads through automated launch, waypoint navigation, and automated landing and payload drop. The system provides battlefield logistics capability to distribute critical supplies at Expeditionary Advanced Bases, where the risk to manned aircraft would deny manned aviation resupply operations out to the last tactical mile.
“The contested logistics environment challenges the ability of our Marines to distribute necessary supplies to the right place at the time of need,” said Col. Aaron Angell, Logistics Combat Element Division director. “TRUAS gives a logistics unit the organic ability to immediately respond with a precision ground launched air delivery system. This is leap-ahead technology that we will learn to continue to shape future unmanned aerial logistics platforms.”
-NAVAIR News
Open source forum and all but are those the units? How much can each of those carry? They look like they could carry a single MRE case. One would think the minimum payload specs would be at least a single 5gal water can? Or ammo can at least. What size element can those realistically resupply? I envisioned something much bigger.
TRV-150 is rated at 150lbs capacity
Obviously as you approach that flight time dies off quickly, larger objects kill flight time with drag, etc etc. But even if you call it 75lb, being able to deliver 70 loaded mags with 5lb of packaging is pretty solid capability.
Flight time data on mfg website is sort of ambiguous
The open info on it shows a payload of 150lbs, hence the TRV-150c designation. Those motors and props are huge.
150 is an impressive number. I wonder what the other flight envelope limitations are. For instance a nato fuel can weighs about 36lbs so it can carry 4 of those but clearly the mass of 4 is highly problematic even if the weight is not. The same goes for water at 8.2 lbs per nato can. It can carry 3 but can it really? MRE’s come in at 22lbs per case but unless it can sling load it, it’s not getting 6 cases onboard. 5.56 is 30lbs per 1000 in commercial packaging which is clearly much less bulky than 855a1 in a can. 5000 rounds is alot and well within the estimated bulk capacity of that A/C. 50 BA 2590U batteries is impressive as well and likely possible.
The best understanding of the size short of actually seeing it in person would come from searching the model name on youtube. It’s about twice as long as it is wide and has no problem fitting 2 MFC/MWC and could probably do 3, and a full filbe or medium load out bag are about perfect volume.
I did and it does appear to have some sling load capability. Going by pictures only, the big limitation seems to be the load must fit between the struts and between the belly and the ground which goes back to some of the other concerns I had about bulk vs weight. If it fits it ships I suppose.
There’s also a 400lb variant that’s capable of casevac.