Royal Navy: Cutting-edge drones to be used on HMS Prince of Wales for the first time during major deployment

A fleet of un-crewed aircraft will be utilised aboard HMS Prince of Wales during her nine-month Indo-Pacific operation. The 65,000 tonne warship will take charge of the UK Carrier Strike Group (UKCSG), where the drones will be used to ferry vital supplies between the vessels.

Lieutenant Matt Parfitt, a drone flight commander with 700X NAS, said: “There is a statistic from previous carrier strike deployments that shows 95 per cent of stores transferred weigh less than 50kg. They could be anything from parcels from home to a vital engineering part. In the past we’d have used a helicopter if a part was urgently needed on another ship. This time we’re going to use a remotely-piloted, un-crewed system instead. We are aware that we’re trialling new things and, because it’s not been done before on this scale, the eyes of the fleet will be on us.”

Nine powerful octo-copters, Malloy T-150s, will carry food, engineering parts and packages from home around the task group during the deployment. They will join F-35B fighter jets, Wildcat helicopters and other aircraft. With these new systems being trialled, the hope is the other capabilities can focus more on defending the task force from threats.

Drone specialist 700X Naval Air Squadron from Royal Navy Air Station Culdrose will embark a team of 12 sailors to operate the nine systems, initially from three ships in the group to test their capability. Each Malloy T-150 drone has eight rotor blades two feet in length each. They can maintain flight for between 20 to 40 minutes, reach a top speed of 60mph and can lift up to 68kg.

Two people are needed to fly the aircraft, with one pilot at the controls and another monitoring it’s command unit. They can be flown manually or autonomously to specific waypoints while carrying an underslung cargo.

Lieutenant Parfitt added: “We only got these Malloy systems last August. Since then we’ve had to learn how to fly and maintain them and how to integrate them into the crewed aviation space. That’s an awful lot of regulations and documentation that has to be done, which is a lot of work for us as we prepare to deploy. These systems have only really been used over land before, so we’re also having to understand how we can operate and maintain them in the maritime environment.

“Everybody is working at maximum speed to get everything ready. It has been challenging and difficult, but that’s also exciting too. This is exactly the sort of thing we joined the navy to do, and certainly why we joined this squadron.”

Personnel from different branches have been drawn up to operate in 700X NAS, with the Royal Navy looking to build a corps of dedicated and qualified drone personnel. Able Rate Michael Page joined the force as a naval airman aircraft handler and has retrained as a remote pilot. He’s qualified to fly the Malloy and small fixed-wing Puma drones.

He said: “It’s a lot different from being an aircraft handler. You’ve got a lot more responsibility in this role and they don’t just need to look at your rank, instead they look at your level of skill too. It’s been really good. I’ve enjoy going on all types of ships and I’ve already been deployed to the Far East, west Africa and the Caribbean.”