Skip to main content



History is made every day. If you, for example, watch sports and pay attention to the commentators, you will most likely be inundated with an avalanche of factoids about how some player just made sports history. A player did a thing that has never been done at 9PM on a Tuesday in March; this kind of history is more or less superfluous. Off the coast of Virginia, on the deck of the USS George H. W. Bush, the US Navy made actual history yesterday. It performed the first successful launch of an unmanned aircraft from the deck of a carrier. The flight lasted for an hour and five minutes. Essentially, the Navy just got a robot plane to take off and fly around on its own.
After the hour-long joyride, the jet, an X-47B, safely landed at Maryland’s Naval Air Station Patuxent River. Unfortunately, the X-47B didn’t land on the carrier after the flight, but no similar drones have managed that just yet. However, that is what the Navy is gearing up toward, and this test flight is just one preliminary step before attempting to land the unmanned aircraft on a carrier this summer. The drone did attempt two landing on the carrier, but both were waved off, as the landings were deemed not safe enough at the time. The Navy noted that the jet completed various successful landings on a terrestrial simulator, but it ended up not being enough just yet. The drone, almost as if pitched by an infomercial host, has wings that can be folded in to reduce the overall size of the craft, making it easier to store on the carrier once successful landings are made possible.
The X-47B flight also marked some other momentous occasions in the world of flight. It became the first tailless aircraft to take off from a carrier deck, as well as being the first jet with a low observable stealth profile to launch from a carrier deck. Along with those feats, the X-47B has now become the first autonomous, unmanned jet to fly in the US military.
For the momentous occasion, though, the X-47B is not meant for actual, active service, and currently only serves as a demonstrator of the working technology. Thankfully, the technology — intended for active service or not — is quite impressive, especially if you dream of a terrifying world where autonomous, unmanned military stealth aircraft roam freely in air.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

LCA vs grippen vs JF-17 vs F-CK-1

  India’s much awaited supersonic fighter jet, Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas was inducted into the IAF yesterday. LCA Tejas is India’s first indigenously built light combat aircraft and its induction has highlighted India’s defence aviation and self sufficiency capabilities to the world. We have to wait and watch if LCA TEJAS matches other multirole fighters like Gripen, JF-17  and F-CK-1. So lets go ahead and compare the features of LCA TEJAS with the rest. Lets start with the LCA TEJAS which is a single-seat, single-engine, lightweight, high-agility supersonic fighter aircraft. The LCA TEJAS can speed upto Mach 1.4 and is capable of carrying assorted weapon load along with dropping tanks up to four tons. It has some of the latest avionics and digital flight control systems. The Tejas, presently is powered by American General Electric Engine. The HAL TEJAS is designed with a single vertical fin  with no tailplanes or foreplanes and has a delta wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Eurofighter Typhoon vs Dassault Rafale

Eurofighter Typhoon is one of the worlds most advanced new generation multi-role/swing-role combat aircraft available on the market. With 707 aircraft ordered by six nations (Germany, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, Austria and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), and in service with all nations, the aircraft is Europe’s largest military collaborative program. Eurofighter Typhoon is the only fighter to offer wide-ranging operational capabilities whilst at the same time delivering unparalleled fleet effectiveness. When the RAFALE program was launched, the Armée de l’Air and the Marine Nationale (the French Air Force and the French Navy) published a joint requirement for a balanced multirole aircraft that would be able to replace seven types of combat aircraft then in use. Versatile and best in all categories of missions, the RAFALE is a true “force multiplier” This is what Dassault Aviation says about their pride and joy and it’s really interesting since they put too much emphasis on...
Post a Comment
Read more
SPECTRA (Système de Protection et d’Évitement des Conduites de Tir du Rafale) is a integrated defensive aids suite for Dassault Rafale developed by Thales Group. Modern air warfare pose a different challenge on aircraft self-defense capabilities. SPECTRA provides complete automated system directly integrated into the Rafale. SPECTRA ensures efficient electromagnetic detection, laser warning, IR detection for missile warning, jamming and chaff/flare dispensing, even in the most demanding multi-threats environment. SPECTRA is divided into different modules and sensors strategically positioned throughout the airframe to provide all-round coverage. The latest advances in micro-electronic technology have led to a new system which is much lighter, more compact and less demanding than its ancestors in terms of electrical and cooling powers. All elements of the Thales SPECTRA system are built into the airframe, have high levels of automation and system integration. SPECTRA include...
Post a Comment
Read more