Navy to try first carrier launch of X-47B

[El Supremo]

Source: U-T San Diego

The Navy says it will make its first attempt on Tuesday to launch Northrop Grumman's futuristic X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System drone from an aircraft carrier. The vehicle, which was developed at Northrop's San Diego County plants, is scheduled to undergo a catapult launch from the carrier George H.W. Bush, on the East Coast. If successful, the launch could represent an important step toward eventually making drones part of a carrier's air wing.

Rear Adm. Mat Winter, the Navy's program officer for the X-47B, said online Monday that, "Controlled by a mission operator aboard the ship, the X-47B will execute several carrier approaches demonstrating its ability to operate seamlessly within the carrier environment before it flies over the Eastern Shore and lands back at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., where two demonstration aircraft have resided for the past year ...

"Over the coming years, we will heavily leverage the technology maturation, networking advances and precision navigation algorithms developed from the X-47B demonstration program to pursue the introduction of the first operational carrier-based unmanned aircraft. This future system will provide 24/7, carrier-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and targeting capability, which will operate together with manned aviation assets allowing the opportunity to shape a more efficient carrier air wing."



Read more: http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/may/13/northrop-drone/

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Adios Carrier pilots! It was fun.

[DJ13]

1. Did the Navy hold a "paint the drone" contest among kindergarten classes?

[AtheistCrusader]

3. It's covered with materials

that mask what it is made of, coated with, and other interesting details.

Sort of like seeing a prototype BMW on the road, cladded with what is basically a tarp with holes cut out. Obscuring the lines and appearance of the vehicle.

[longship]

5. So why did they color it with kiddy Crayolas?

If you want to camo something against a grey ship, you don't make it bright orange, a color not very common in nature.

Boggles the mind. Fracking thing sticks out like a sore thumb.

I think I've managed to suitably falsify your explanation. Weirdly, I cannot come up with a better one other than that maybe they did have a kindergarten coloring contest for the damned thing.

What were they thinking?

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. Let's try this again: "It's covered with materials

that mask what it is made of, coated with, and other interesting details.

Sort of like seeing a prototype BMW on the road, cladded with what is basically a tarp with holes cut out. Obscuring the lines and appearance of the vehicle."

So, what you see sticking out like a sore thumb is the 'tarp'. You cannot see what the drone is made of, coated with, and other interesting details. They have not bothered to camouflage the tarp. This is not a case of making it difficult to see when it's parked on the ship. The drone is camouflaged when it's flying.

[longship]

7. I understand both your posts.

But if they want to camouflage the damned thing in any way, why make it fucking bright yellow and orange? That makes no sense at all. If you're going to cover the damned thing to hide its technology, why draw attention to it?

HERE!!! WHATEVER YOU DO DON'T LOOK AT THIS!!! THERE'S NOTHING TO SEE UNDER HERE!!!!

Get what I mean?

I'll stand by my post.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. It is not camouflaged in the picture. It is covered.

Both camouflaging and covering something prevent you from seeing the surface. It will not be flying with the tarp on. When transporting a plane, and loading it onto a ship, it's not as if they're going to be able to make people think there's nothing there at all. The existence of a plane that size on a transporter will be noticed. So they wrap it up, so the details cannot be seen.

[longship]

9. The issue isn't the covering it up, it's the color of the covering.

The cover it up to hide its details then draw attention to it by making it bright orange!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Which had to be a deliberate choice!!!

That's the issue. And why I say,


I stand by my posts here.

[AtheistCrusader]

10. Maybe so someone doesn't back a fucking forklift into it.

It's orange because nobody gives a shit what color the covering is. Who cares. Carrier deck operations are dangerous, so it's probably brightly colored for that reason.

It gives away precisely nothing about the UAV itself. (The outline/shape is already known publicly)

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. Are you saying you wouldn't notice a 30x40 foot plane on a transporter as you passed it

on the highway, if it had been suitably camouflaged? Even if you think your own powers of observation are that bad, other people's aren't. It's obvious they don't want to deny the existence of the carrier tests anyway, or they wouldn't have put of a press release, with photos, about it.

I think we've got that you're "standing by your posts". I'm just trying not to laugh, that 's all.

[AtheistCrusader]

11. I didn't say they wanted to camo it against the ship as a backdrop.

In fact, there are reasons NOT to do that. One can safely presume this won't be the only airframe on the deck of the ship during these exercises.

'Sticking out like a sore thumb' is for a couple reasons, desirable, and gives nothing away about the aircraft.

[PFunk]

12. To make it easy/track to see I guess. It's a test plane after all.

It's standard operating procedure. A lot of planes like the F-16 (and F-22) were done up in similar colors during their test phases.

[longship]

14. Still seems like a damned peculiar color scheme.

I don't at all buy that they're trying to hide its construction. They're not trying to hide anything with those colors. It's fairly screaming, "HERE I AM!!!"

But that makes sense if they have reasons to visually track the thing, or some other such reason. It is a test vehicle, as one of you stated. I can buy that.

[Ptah]

15. The drone is covered. You are not seeing the drone in the OP's picture.

[longship]

17. Well, in those colors one can't not see it.

Which is precisely my point, which none of responders seem to get, even those who claim that it's covered to hide something about it.

Oh well. Thanks for your responses, people. Appreciate the dialog, regardless.

[El Supremo]

20. You win the stupid award of the day!

Linking the wrapping paper of a drone to Fracing.

[AtheistCrusader]

2. Ugh, conflicted.

On the one hand, these are amazing, and will radically change the shape, cost, speed, etc of carriers themselves, as the aircraft can withstand much higher G loads on a shorter catapult than a squishy human ever could... This is going to make amazing advancements in warfighting capacity.


And.... That means it is more likely to be used. Which is incredibly depressing.
We've utterly forgotten the concept of 'deterrence' and just go right in and start killing people and wrecking things as option 1, and unmanned aircraft enable that because it reduces human risk to our side.

Super depressing. This should lead to a lighter, nimbler, more deadly, and therefore more effective as a deterrence military, but instead it will just be used. A lot. Everywhere.

[Stratosgc]

4. Launch a lot easier than recovery

The problem is not launching the drone from the carrier's catapults. The problem is landing it back on the carrier deck. I think that will be nearly impossible.

[Ikonoklast]

16. The Battleship Navy said the very same things about the first manned naval aircraft.

They were wrong, too.

[Brother Buzz]

18. That first launch nearly failed

The second launch was better, and it only happened after Ely first landed his airplane on the ship; piece of cake.

[El Supremo]

21. Eugene Ely landed aboard the Pennsylvania?

News to me!

[Brother Buzz]

22. Yes, on the San Francisco bay

Ely landing his plane on board the USS Pennsylvania in San Francisco Bay, 18 January 1911.

[El Supremo]

23. Kewl!

But the ship wasn't moving. I know - picky picky picky.

[Brother Buzz]

25. Another first for San Francisco:

The first airplane bombing experiments with explosives were conducted eleven days before, at the same airstrip Ely took off from for his famous landing and takeoff on the Pennsylvania, The Tanforan Racetrack. San Francisco was a happening place for early airplane development.

[El Supremo]

24. But this was the first real carrier landing:

Lt. Commander Godfrey de Courcelles Chevalier makes the first aircraft-carrier landing on the deck of America’s first carrier, USS Langley (CV-1) on Oct. 26, 1922

Looks like a Jenny.

[hack89]

27. The Navy has had an automated landing system for years.

It is called the Automatic Carrier Landing System (ACLS) - when coupled to the plane's autopilot, it allows a completely hands off landing.

[GreenStormCloud]

29. Landing will be easily done.

All Naval carrier aircraft already have a comuter controlled automated landing system that does the pilot's job for him/her, and catches a three wire every time. The only reason for a pilot to make a manual carrier landing is to keep in practice.

[Ash_F]

19. Oh good. The drone conquest of humanity will be right on schedule. /nt

[Half-Century Man]

26. The most pressing issue

Not an expanding drone program, not the inherent cowardice in unmanned assets, not to mention our country's international image with our "we don't even care to bother a real person when dealing with you" attitude, Or even congress's contempt for Naval professionals by making us use a toy.
Who the fuck named a carrier after Bush?

[GreenStormCloud]

30. He is the only president who has flown in naval aviation. N/T

[Half-Century Man]

31. Okay: WWII and all that

As an Airdale okay, as a president......well..

[Angleae]

33. That would be Gordon R. England, then-SecNAV.

Of course, the fact George W Bush was president had nothing to do with it

[Half-Century Man]

34. Guess I've learned to accept it

I have moved on from outrage to a persistent dull throbbing pain.

[El Supremo]

28. And here it is:

[Half-Century Man]

32. And there it goes

Naval Honor diminishes.