The Gremlin-mothership arrangement is distinguished by its scale. But several smaller versions of the underlying idea are also in development.One is being put together by General Atomics, the maker of Predator drones.Predators are showing their age, but General Atomics hopes to breathe new life into them by producing a version that is a mothership for smaller drones called Sparrowhawksthat will carry intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance equipment, electronic-jamming apparatus and possibly explosives.Flight tests began in September 2020, though Sparrowhawks have yet to be air-launched and the firm has not explained how they will be recovered in-flight.The American army, for its part, plans to use helicopters fitted with drone-launching pneumatic tubes as motherships.These drones, which, like Gremlins, unfold their wings after launch, have a wingspan of 2.5 metres.In a test conducted last summer six such drones launched in flight were recovered in the air, albeit not by the Black Hawk from which they had emanated.Rather, they were snared by a quadcopter drone dangling a cord that snagged hooks on the target drones' wings.In May the army plans to use rail catapults to launch bigger drones from helicopters.As with Gremlins and Sparrowhawks, the army's push for what it calls "air-launched effects" is driven by America's shift from counterinsurgency to potential war with a foreign power.
