[Infowarrior] - US Navy's robot stealth carrier plane unveiled

[Richard Forno]

(But unless it's flown by Jessica Biel, this can never be as sexy an  
aircraft as EDI. --rf)    :)

US Navy's robot stealth carrier plane unveiled

By Lewis Page •

Posted in Science, 18th December 2008 10:37 GMT

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/18/x47b_rollout_ceremony/

Northrop Grumman yesterday took the wraps off one of the most advanced  
robot aircraft in the world, the X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System  
(UCAS). The X-47B is intended to operate from the flight deck of US  
Navy aircraft carriers, carrying out entire missions including air-to- 
air refuelling without pilot input.
The X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System at its rollout ceremony

Bow down before your Stealth Robot Overlord, puny fleshlings!

"The X-47B will demonstrate how unmanned combat aircraft can operate  
from aircraft carriers ... extending the carrier's reach and power  
projection from anywhere in the world," said Captain Martin Deppe, of  
the US Navy.

The X-47B project will provide just two demonstrator aircraft, mainly  
intended to prove that unmanned planes can successfully take off from  
and land onto US carriers. Catapult launch - and even more so,  
arrested landings - have traditionally been considered one of the most  
difficult and stressful piloting feats.

Apart from proving the concept of unmanned carrier aircraft, however,  
the X-47B will also be able to conduct air-to-air refuelling - giving  
it almost unlimited endurance. The US Navy hasn't asked for more, but  
in fact the aircraft would have little difficulty carrying weapons and  
flying autonomous strike missions, as it is derived from a previous  
joint programme between the navy and air force intended to produce a  
plane which could do just that.

The X-47B, in fact, will be one of the first true killer robots, able  
to conduct a mission using live weapons without needing to communicate  
with pilots or even supervisors on its mother ship or back in the USA.  
Current roboplanes are typically handled in combat over satcomms  
channels from bases in America, and take off and land under the  
control of pilots in ground stations near the runway.

Apart from its robot brain and controls, the X-47B also boasts much  
longer range than a normal carrier jet - and features Stealth  
technology. Some in the US Navy hope that it will allow carriers to  
stand much further off from threatening enemy coasts of the future,  
which might harbour dangerous ship-killing missiles able to punch  
through the fleet's defences.

Others are hostile, however. Pilots are one of the US navy's dominant  
subcultures, and they count themselves better than lowly airforce  
pukes because they do arrested landings - "traps". The Top Guns won't  
be looking forward to telling their children that there's no longer  
any way to win one's glorious wings of gold and the respect of the  
nation by jockeying a tailhook jet down to a wet deck on a stormy  
night far out at sea.

According to Northrop, the X-47B, having now been completed, will now  
enter ground tests in preparation for a first runway flight next  
autumn. Carrier trials are to begin in 2011.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/18/x47b_rollout_ceremony/