X-47B Catapult Launch

That is pretty dang cool.

 

Very cool...

hmmmm no tail hook???? so can't land on a carrier, maybe?

On second thought, that would be very difficult, anyway, I guess... there is a delay (of 4-5 seconds?) from control input from the 'pilot' to the satellite to the drone.

Maybe if the someone on the carrier could take over control...

 

Aircraft like the F-18 have been able to land themselves on an aircraft carrier if necessary for a while now, they system is called ACLS.

As for the drone tail hook... It's probably just hidden behind a door in the aircraft, just like the landing gear. If the runway they are demo ing on isn't rigged with arresting gear then there is no need to drop it. It looks like they were shooting some touch and gos anyway.

 

They just loaded one on a carrier last week. Going out for sea trials early next year.

 

Just out of curiosity, how similar (or dissimilar) is the X47 to the RQ170 that Iran allegedly hacked, "spoofed" and landed intact?

I assume that that issue has been resolved?

However, I think it's very interesting that we could have unmanned drones flying from carriers. Huge potential.

CW

 

The X-47 is not just a drone (like a Predator or RQ170), it's an air combat drone-- I believe it shoots other drones down. Am I wrong?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_X-47B

Since it still carries an X designator it is just a demonstrator. Wiki article says no intent to test weapons capability. Of course that could change, but may depend on whether the weapon bays were actually configured on the demonstrator vehicles.

 

No air to air UCAVs yet. Maybe in the future. With no pilot to constrain g capability, could be a scary possibility.

 

The plane lands autonomously. Even if it was being landed by a pilot, with line of sight they wouldn't need to use satellite communications to land..they could use regular RF or whatever.

 

The RQ-170 is a pure ISR drone built my Lockheed Skunkworks, meaning it's just a spy plane and does not carry any weapons. Very little is known about this aircraft as the program is classified. It could have been some kind of demonstrator, or maybe we have an entire squadron of these things flying around..who knows, we've kept bigger secrets for longer periods of time. Little is known about the technology either, except that this thing was able to fly over Pakistani and Iranian airspace without being detected by their radar. It's also been spotted at an airbase in South Korea, so it's very likely that it has been used to spy on North Korea as well. After the retirement of the SR-71, we become completely dependent on satellites for spying over denied airspace, which are pretty inflexible and the enemy knows when they are overhead. This aircraft is probably the answer to the (or one of the) answers to that. Iran did not hack, spoof and land intact this airplane. It's extremely unlikely that Iran had anything to do with bringing it down..most likely it lost communication and went into some auto-pilot mode and autonomously crash-landed itself in the desert. At best Iran may have jammed the GPS signal if they had spotted it and forced the loss of communication, but even that is unlikely.

The X-47 will basically do the same thing that Predators and Reapers do now, but it will be able take off and land from aircraft carriers, and it will (theoretically) be able to do it in heavily defended airspace since it is stealth. Predators and Reapers currently would be worthless in any war that had two-bit air defenses. It will NOT (and cannot) shoot down other fighters.

 

This is a demonstrator because I believe technically there is an unofficial competition for a Navy UCAS, but with the speed at which the program is moving along, it's starting to seem like a lock that the Navy is going to get the X-47..it would be incredibly stupid and short-sighted of them not too. I don't know what the process is, but either they will build a weaponized demonstrator (if this one cannot carry weapons as is) once carrier ops have been validated, or once the Navy chooses the X-47 they will add weapons to it. I assume this one is capable of being armed, and eventually they will get to that point to test it out. The EU just flew their stealth drone yesterday for the first time..a program which something like six countries had been working on several years before the X-47 was started. We are already doing catapult launches and getting ready to do carrier launch..this has been a very successful program

 

That makes sense... I was just thinking about the F-18, the hook is just out there in the open on the bottom of the plane even when retracted. But that doesn't work for a 'stealth' plane, so behind a door makes sense. It would need a hook for a carrier landing.


BTW, there were a couple F-18's at Rocky Mountain airport (near Denver) this weekend, from CVN-73 George Washington, just parked on the ramp with the G-Vs, Citations, QueenAirs and a tiny Pitts.