The Hellhound S3 UAS from Cummings Aerospace takes minimal time to build, and its production is only getting started
A recent bipartisan wargame revealed that in a conflict with China, the U.S. would rapidly burn through its missile inventory, lose hundreds of aircraft, and almost two dozen ships.
Participants concluded “at its current production capacity, the US defense industrial base would effectively not be able to replace these losses.” But China could.
That’s one of the reasons why Alabama-based defense and engineering contractor Cummings Aerospace is ramping up its industrial production capability.
The company’s Hellhound S3 drone, designed to compete for the U.S. Army’s upcoming Low Altitude Stalking and Strike Ordnance (LASSO) program, is built by additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, for speed and efficiency, and uses readily available, U.S. Department of Defense-approved commercial off-the-shelf materials as well as plug-and-play software.
Those key factors, company officials said, enable Cummings Aerospace to bypass long lead times created by manufacturing and potential supply chain lags, enabling the company to rapidly and affordably produce Hellhound.
“Typically, in less than a week, we can pull together a full unit,” Nicole Parker, Cummings’ vice president of corporate operations, said.
Company officials say that time is set to be further reduced in the next few weeks, as the company implements lean manufacturing processes.
“We understand the mission,” Cummings Executive Vice President Kelly Francis said. “We understand the products and the end user and what it takes to be successful in this industry.”
S3, a variant within the Hellhound family developed as an end-to-end weapon system by Cummings, is a vertical launch, manportable, fixed wing kamikaze drone that can be modified to meet the demands of the mission, allowing Soldiers to quickly switch between warhead, Electronic Warfare or Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) payloads.
Hellhound’s three body sections take about two days to print, using printers on site at Cumming’s Alabama headquarters. The drone’s electronics and fittings are then added, completing a five-part manufacturing process.
“You can buy thoe electronics and fittings off the shelf, and can integrate them pretty quickly,” Parker said.
According to Parker, 3D printing gives Hellhound greater flexibility and increases its affordability while reducing overall development cycle time. Changes that may have taken years in another setting can now be done in a matter of months, or even days. When Cummings decided on a design change to improve legs that support Hellhound’s launch canister—which also doubles as the drone’s carrying case—the work was quick.
“A few days, and we have a new design and a new print,” Parker said.
As the U.S. looks for more affordable and flexible solutions to outmatch future adversaries, Hellhound can be scaled to reach the battlefield fast.
“As we iterate on the design, it allows us to rapidly integrate that iteration into the production flow, and it also allows us to adapt our production quantities quickly as the need changes from the customer,” Francis said. “If [the Department of Defense] wants us to ramp up to 1,000 quickly, that’s really not a problem. It’s a question of how many 3D printers do you have? It’s a pretty slick solution to be printing the airframes.”
In addition to the Army, Cummings is also developing Hellhound for potential Navy and Air Force and Special Operations use. The company was founded in 2009 by CEO Sheila Cummings, a Native American woman whose engineering experience includes work with the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and the Missile Defense Agency. Hellhound is Cummings’ first end-to-end product offering.
In addition to being able to scale up production for Hellhound quickly, the drone is also showing its speed, too. During flight tests, it topped out at more than 375 mph. Reaching a target fast can make all the difference for the warfighter and provides an alternative solution in the race to rebuild a weapons stockpile.
“We’re aligning our munitions with the threat,” Parker said. “The Hellhound provides a munition that can support the kinds of threats we expect to see without having to deplete the high-end products that are currently fielded.”