Unmanned US Navy jet gets more punch
A small, experimental jet intended to demonstrate a UAV's ability to operate off aircraft carriers just might see operational action, according to two top US Navy officials. The aircraft is the X-47B, being developed by Northrop Grumman under the Navy Unmanned Combat Air System (N-UCAS) program. Roughly $2 billion has been added by the Pentagon over the next five years to give the program a major boost. Most of that money, said Rear Adm. Bill Burke, was at the behest of the new Quadrennial Defence Review (QDR).
"What we think it ought to do is deliver some sort of capability," Burke, the Navy's QDR director, told reporters February 4 at the Pentagon. "It would be a real program; it wouldn't be a demo. We'd like it to be able to deliver kinetic effects or do [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] missions for us." Burke cautioned that many decisions still lie ahead.
The first of two X-47Bs is scheduled to be delivered by Northrop early this year, with the second to follow late in 2010. Carrier-based tests are to begin next year.
Unlike other unmanned aerial vehicles, the X-47B - which looks like a miniature B-2 Stealth bomber - is intended as a strike aircraft that can operate from aircraft carrier flight decks.
X-aircraft are generally intended as technology demonstrators and not prototypes of operational aircraft, although both contenders for the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program came from the X line. The N-UCAS program has been envisioned as leading to an operational Navy aircraft in about a decade, but the QDR may have spurred an effort to accelerate that timeline.
Source: www.defensenews.com
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments