X-47B Sorties Ramping Up
The U.S. Navy is building on the successful first flight of the stealthy, tailless Northrop Grumman X-47B demonstrator as a pivotal step toward the long-held goal of marrying persistent, autonomous unmanned intelligence and strike aircraft with the reach of its fleet of aircraft carriers.
“We’re celebrating the centennial of Naval aviation, and if we fast-forward 100 years, then we’ve added three words—unmanned, autonomous and LO [low-observable] relevant,” says Capt. Jaime Engdahl, the Navy’s Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) project director. The X-47B flight-test program, which began with a 29-min. flight at Edwards AFB, Calif., on Feb. 4 will answer questions about what it takes “to put unmanned, autonomous and LO-relevant into the carrier environment.”
Though proving the viability of the once unthinkable concept of autonomous combat air operations from the carrier, UCAS is also a critical technology stepping-stone to the Navy’s planned Unmanned Carrier-Launched Surveillance Systems (Uclass) program. “Just as important is the technology we embed into the carrier itself,” says Engdahl, referring to the data link and related communication breakthroughs that UCAS-D is expected to demonstrate as part of a planned seamless integration of unmanned aircraft into carrier air wing operations.
While Engdahl describes the first flight of an unmanned Navy X-plane as a “huge deal,” another industry executive notes its significance as an interim step to a future fleet of carrier-borne unmanned combat vehicles. “It is the start of an intent for unmanned aviation on a carrier. It is not the carrier landing—that will be a big deal, too,” says Carl Johnson, Northrop Grumman’s vice president of program management. But this first flight represents the beginning of unmanned tactical aircraft for the Navy.”
The test program will work toward carrier landings in 2013. It will then turn to prove the concept of aerial refueling, which would eliminate onboard fuel storage as a limiting factor for mission endurance in future combat UAS.
To date, the Pentagon has largely used unmanned aircraft to provide intelligence and—in limited fashion with the Air Force’s General Atomics Predator and Reaper—attack capabilities. In general, unmanned aircraft—also including tiny Boeing ScanEagles, AeroVironment Ravens and AAI Corp. Shadows, as well as Northrop Grumman’s larger Fire Scouts and Global Hawks—have all been designed to function in permissive airspace. Introduction of the stealthy UCAS, however, “represents a significant step in a change in the roles for unmanned vehicles,” an industry executive says.
Success of the demonstrator will be key to achieving the planned follow-on purchase of an interim fleet of Uclass. “What [UCAS] moves us into is Uclass—a carrier based-system—for the first time,” says Rear Adm. Matthew Klunder, director of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) at Navy headquarters. The service hopes to kick off a competition as soon as this year to field up to eight air vehicles on a carrier in 2018.
Northrop is expected to build off of its X-47B experience, Boeing will use its X-45-based Phantom Ray background and General Atomics will likely use its Avenger concept as a departure for its design. Lockheed Martin is also likely to bid, building off of work on the Polecat demonstrator and the RQ-170 now fielded by the Air Force.
A request for proposals (RFP), which was expected this spring, will slip at least to this fall, says Klunder. The primary mission of Uclass will be to contribute to the carrier’s need for round-the-clock ISR collection in its area of operation. Navy officials declined to provide a schedule for when requirements will be reviewed by the Joint Staff.
But debate is continuing in the Pentagon over what attributes to emphasize in the design. And industry is weighing in.
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