During a Future Combat Systems briefing at AUSA in Washington this morning, Maj. Gen. Charles Cartwright told a group of reporters that there are currently 20 Honeywell-made Micro Air Vehicles (MAV) deployed with a Stryker brigade combat team in Iraq, and there are plans to have a total of 32 there by the end of November.

In a response to a question about where the FCS program is headed in the future, and how it will link up its communications suite to other Army comms programs, Lt. Gen. Michael A. Vane, director of the Army Capabilities Integration Center, added that there are plans for the Land Warrior system, which is about to deploy to Iraq for a second time with a Stryker BCT, to be “connected to FCS the system to help the dismounted soldier be connected to the network.” He stressed that this is still conceptual, but it’s part of “where we’re going with our Future Combat System-enabled Army.”  

As far as how helpful the testing of FCS technologies at Ft. Bliss has been to the overall health of the program, Gen. Cartwright added that “the SUGV [small, unmanned ground vehicle] in the last year and a half has gone through three major design changes based on the feedback we’re getting directly from the soldiers.”

The entire FCS package continues to undergo testing, with spinouts — like the MAV, and sometime in 2009, the Unmanned Ground Sensors — coming on line when the technologies are mature enough. In a separate briefing, Gregg Martin, Boeing vice president and FCS program manager said that “‘09 is all about detailed design, ‘10 is all about initial integration and ‘11 is all about formal qualification testing.”