Navy's X-47B drone: new pics

[Dr Mordrid]

America’s fleet of supercarriers just got closer to becoming a whole lot more dangerous.

On Friday afternoon Northrop Grumman’s X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstration (UCAS-D), a prototype for the Navy’s first carrier killer drone, flew for the first time from Edwards Air Force Base. The flight lasted 29 minutes, and subsequent flights will be used for envelope expansion (gear up, longer, higher, faster etc.) and other tests.

These very stealthy (radar, acoustic and infrared) UCAS drones are being designed as deep penetrators who will fly right through the most advanced "triple-digit" antiaircraft missile systems like the S-300, while allowing their carriers to remain well outside of missile range.

Technical and command-and-control issues need to be addressed, but war planners have been routinely using them in simulations as part of a carrier strike group. In some they have even swapped out a manned air wing for an all-UCAS wing, reportedly with great success.

Carrier trials due in 2012.

Length: 38 feet
Wingspan: 62 feet
Speed: high subsonic
Payload: 4,500 lbs (internal) (F/A-18E = 9,000 lbs external)
Service Ceiling: over 40,000 feet (low-balling it, no doubt; F/A-18E = 50,000 feet)
Range: 2,100+ nautical miles without refueling (F/A-18E = 520+ nautical miles)
Contractors: Northrop Grumman (primary), Lockheed Martin, Pratt & Whitney and GKN Aerospace (UK)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDnvxNdez84

[Evildead666]

Thats Huuuuuuuuuge!!!!

looks the business, and has folding/sliding wings as well.
Those winglets look like they could sweep forward or backward.

[MultimediaMan]

Just wait until the Marines get a few for amphibious landing support... they'd go in 3-12 hours before feet dry and hit coastal installations/ artillery batteries and use area denial weapons to isolate the beachhead even before the first 'phib hit the water. Good times.

I'm waiting for the day they will start deploying UAVs in the role of the AWACS/Hawkeyes: lots of them. There is not much need to put the crew on a radar platform.

[Dr Mordrid]

No, the winglets don't sweep but like all carrier planes they do fold. With most of the airframe being a lifting body the need for sweeping wings is near nil, especially with them being so small.

The real unanswered question is, can it dog-fight? Being unmanned it should be able to pull 20-25 G's, which would disable or kill a pilot, and put this thing in firing position in no time. Hostiles wouldn't know what hit them. I suspect they can because of the chatter about 'drone wing-men.'

These things will cause all kinds of hell.

[KRSESQ]

God help us if it becomes self-aware!

[Dr Mordrid]

New pics taken Sept. 30 at Edwards AFB in California.

I can imagine the UFO reports already

[Evildead666]

I can imagine it being hacked/taken over, and being flown without the US being able to control it.

[MultimediaMan]

There are a number of contingencies for that... including an out-of-band self-destruct. Lockheed and Co. have been developing UAVs for nearly 60 years... they have learned a thing or two about it.

[Dr Mordrid]

Let's not forget that carriers already use the Automatic Carrier Landing System (ACLS), a Precision Approach Landing System (PALS) which allows landing in all weather conditions with no limitations due to low ceiling or visibility. What this does is expand on its capabilities and tie the drones into the system.

This was a series of Case I landings using an F/A-18D airframe with the X-47B's avionics and mods to the USS Eisrnhower, so there's plenty of testing to do. From this it sounds like X-47B's first carrier deck landing has been moved to 2013.

http://defensetech.org/2011/07/07/navy-one-step-closer-to-uav-carrier-ops/

The U.S. Navy just got a little closer to its goal of routinely flying combat drones off carriers by the close of the decade when an F/A-18 Hornet landed itself on the deck of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) using flight control software designed for the Northrop-Grumman-built X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstrator or UCAS-D.

On July 2, the F/A-18 (shown above) performed dozens of arrested landings without any input from the pilot in the Atlantic Ocean off the Virginia Capes. What’s really interesting about this is that the jet wasn’t controlled by someone in the carrier the way current drones are controlled from ground stations. No, this jet simply received a command from the carrier’s air traffic control to enter the landing pattern and execute the landing all on its own; the same way a piloted jet would.

“Once he’s on his approach, we actually take control of the aircraft via the systems we have installed as part of the demo and actually the aircraft is controlled by flight [rules] we put in place, all the way down to trap,” said Don Blottenberger,the Navy’s UCAS-D deputy principal program manager during a phone call with reporters this morning. “There is no remote control of the aircraft, there is no pilot control of the aircraft; we’ve given it instructions and it executes those instructions.”

Just to make it clear, Blottenberger added:

“There is no remote control, meaning there is no joystick, there’s no one that’s flying this aircraft from the carrier, we give it commands via the network we have in place … tying in with existing carrier systems and then the aircraft executes those commands.”

The system, which uses precision-GPS navigation data transmitted over Rockwell Collins’ Tactical Targeting Network Technology (which I thought was defunct), allows the air traffic controllers, air boss and landing signals officer to tell the plane to enter the approach and perform all the necessary adjustments in heading, altitude and speed necessary to perform a trap. In the final phase of the approach, the LSO can even order the jet to wave off using his terminal that has been modified to communicate with an unmanned jet, according to NAVAIR officials.

According to the Hornet’s pilot, Lt. Jeremy DeBons, the landing felt no different from when an F/A-18 lands using the Automated Carrier Landing System, although. Still, he kept his “hands very close” to the controls during the ‘hands-off’ landings.

The new, GPS-based system developed for the UCAS-D has 360-degree coverage around the ship; the ability to control multiple aircraft and allows the actual airplane to determine how it will fly according to the commands from air traffic control. The older radar-based auto-land system has limited coverage off the stern of the carrier, determines what type of stick and throttle inputs should be performed for the plane and can only control a limited number of aircraft, according to NAVAIR officials.

Now the Navy has proven the auto-landing system works, the two X-47Bs will be flown to NAS Patuxent River in Maryland where they’ll do everything from perform cat shots and arrested landings to practice operating on a crowded carrier deck mock up and flying in its airspace throughout next year. If all goes well, this will pave the way for an actual carrier landing by an X-47B sometime in 2013, according to NAVAIR.

[Dr Mordrid]

See that 2,100+ range in the OP? Now read this -

(sorry for just the summary, paywall)

Navy Modifies X-47B Contract To Continue Developing Aerial Refueling Capability

The Navy is moving forward with plans to expand the capability of its X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System -- a development effort that aims to demonstrate technologies needed for a stealthy unmanned fighter designed to operate from an aircraft carrier -- to autonomously refuel while in flight with both Air Force and naval tankers.
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So with a refueling on each leg this pup could have a total range of nearly 5,000-6,000 miles.

Cripes!

[Evildead666]

So skynet will be able to refuel its drones.

It won't be long now

[Dr Mordrid]

Looks like automated refueling is on the short list.

Aviation Week....

Automated Aerial Refueling Next For X-47B

If aircraft carriers enable the U.S. to project force, keeping those forces over the battle falls to its aerial-refueling tanker fleet. Automated tanking will be critical to the persistent surveillance and deep-strike capabilities envisioned for unmanned combat aircraft.

So it makes sense that, once it has shown it can operate from a carrier, the Northrop Grumman X-47B unmanned combat air system (UCAS) demonstrator should be tasked with proving autonomous aircraft can refuel in flight from the same tankers, and using the same methods, as manned aircraft.

To that end, the program plans in 2014 to demonstrate that the X-47B can refuel autonomously in flight via U.S. Navy probe-and-drogue and Air Force boom-and-receptacle systems, transferring 3,000 lb. of fuel to the UCAS by each method.

The flight demo will build on work under way, led by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), to develop technologies and operating concepts (conops) for automated aerial refueling (AAR). Key to the effort is proving that precision-GPS relative navigation (relnav) can enable unmanned aircraft to rendezvous with and connect to essentially unmodified aerial tankers.

In the common architecture being developed by the Air Force and Navy, the unmanned receiver and manned tanker exchange position information from onboard global-positioning/inertial-navigation systems (GPS/INS) via a high-integrity data link. The receiver calculates its location relative to the tanker and flies itself into formation, from where it is directed, by its ground control station (GCS) or the tanker itself, to move through the standard refueling positions used by manned aircraft.
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[Dr Mordrid]

http://www.aviationweek.com/awmobile/Article.aspx?id=/article-xml/asd_08_03_2012_p03-01-482843.xml

X-47B UCAS-D Begins Deck Handling Trials

Northrop Grumman’s X-47B unmanned combat aircraft system demonstrator (UCAS-D) is about to begin ground maneuver trials at NAS Patuxtent River, Md., to evaluate deck handling procedures as it moves toward a landing on an aircraft carrier in 2013.

The X-47B made its first flight from Pax on July 29, when air vehicle (AV) 2 completed a 36-min. flight over Chesapeake Bay, reaching 7,500 ft. altitude and 180 kt. airspeed.

The two X-47Bs were trucked to Pax after completing envelope-expansion flight testing at Edwards AFB, Calif.

“In the months since AV-1 arrived at Pax, we have completed Block 1 envelope expansion, electromagnetic compatibility testing, and autonomous carrier air traffic control testing on the USS Truman using a King Air surrogate,” says Capt. Jaime Engdahl, UCAS program manager.

Last to arrive, AV-2 was used for the first flight from Pax because the tests, to demonstrate airspace integration and command-and-control functionality, could be performed with the software used to complete the airworthiness testing at Edwards.

AV-1 is being readied for carrier suitability testing with the next block of software, which is focused on allowing the aircraft to integrate with ship operations. Shore-based catapult launches and arrested landings will begin at Pax in late fall.

Within days, ground maneuver tests with AV-2 will begin on the ramp at Pax, using a wireless controller that straps to the UCAS-D deck operator’s right arm and controls thrust, nosewheel steering, brakes and tailhook.

On deck, the operator will stand directly behind the “yellow-shirt” director, facing the X-47B, and follow his signals to maneuver the unmanned aircraft onto the catapult, run up the engine, check the control surfaces and hand over control to the mission operator.

Upon landing, after the X-47B catches the wire and reduces engine power to idle, the deck operator will take over control, raise the tailhook and maneuver the aircraft off the wire.