Robot Jet Fighter Takes First Flight 119
lysdexia writes "The X-47B is a Tailless Flying Robotic Overlord, which requires neither puny human pilot nor extraneous remote control. First flight was 29 minutes, climbing to a height of 5000 ft. Next step: landing on aircraft carrier."
Errors (Score:4, Interesting)
1. Carrier trials are not until 2013 so they are not "next".
2. This isn't a fighter it is an attack aircraft or a bomber. Actually a light bomber but then the F-117 Stealth Fighter was not a fighter but also a bomber and or attack aircraft.
Re:Not a Jet Fighter (Score:5, Interesting)
Very true. But once the avionics and autonomous flight systems are tuned, building and flying fighter and bomber UAVs is going to be cake. Kids going through the pilot pipeline now are probably some of the last armed forces pilots who will do so.
Now, before you huff and say, "No way will software and electronic kit replace people wholesale in military aircraft!", I'd think about it a bit. I was able to watch a UAV dock, refuel, and detach from a KC-130 tanker ~7 months ago, with no human intervention. Refueling? Check. Carrier takeoffs/landings? Almost here. You can have some pretty amazing flight characteristics when you don't have to support the human body in flight.
A Taste of Armageddon (Score:4, Interesting)
Dont say we didn't warn you [wikipedia.org].
Missiles... (Score:4, Interesting)
Heres a question for anyone in the know.
Given there no longer needs to be a meatsack in the chair, whats stopping UAV's from being able to literally dodge incoming fire (RPG's, missles etc)?
As long as they could be detected they could theoritically be dodged and destroyed given the ability of being able to do very high G's in a turn.
Re:Not a Jet Fighter (Score:4, Interesting)
As it turns out, the real problem on these platforms is power generation. With synthetic aperture radars, flight control systems, on-board mission management systems, laser designators, EO sensors, and LOS and BLOS/satellite comms gear on board, the problem of supplying electricity for all the systems becomes critical.
I worked on the original J-UCAS program which transitioned from DARPA to the Navy, and designing the autonomous flight and mission management systems was the easier part of the problem. Creating the comm infrastructure (software defined radios), the operational procedures, the peer-to-peer cooperation, and mundane stuff like dealing with air traffic control turn out to be much harder in practice.
Definitely one of the coolest projects I have ever worked on and I'm glad to see one of the J-UCAS derived UAVs finally getting into the air.
Re:Missiles... (Score:5, Interesting)
Physics!
First off all, nobody is going to shoot down a UAV with an RPG, unless it is hovering at very low altitude. If you got this idea from Black Hawk down, the helicopters got shot down while they were basically hovering at roof level. A small plane going a few hundred mph is impossible to hit.
The physics part comes in, because a small missile with lower mass, much higher thrust to weight ratio and much smaller control surfaces can pull much higher g's than anything with large wings. A F-16 can pull around 9G before things start coming off, this might be able to do 15, a light AA or SA missile can pull 20-50.
So yeah, it might out-turn more than a manned plane, but not a missile.