Posted on 01/31/2020 12:09:42 PM PST by Red Badger
hmmm ... There is also a company, Valkyrie, involved in Drone development.
Do they have fat ladies that sing Wagnerian operas?................
Who the HECK is "Kratos Defense"? Boeing and Lockheed are out of the picture?
This is the first I've heard of this aircraft. In March 2019, Tyler Rogoway wrote "Just a week after Boeing unveiled their export-centric 'loyal wingman' combat drone concept, the Air Force Research Lab has announced that their own similar endeavor, dubbed the XQ-58A Valkyrie, has made its first flight. It also posted the very first image of the aircraft that has been developed under a veil of secrecy over the last two and half years."
It's amazing that the Boeing X45 UCAV (Unmanned Aerial Combat Vehicle) died and Boeing is working on the "Loyal Wingman" successor program.
Kratos has a facility right down the street from where I sit.
Right across the street from Boeing and just down from Lockheed Martin...............
Clue.....................
It will “smoke”
My Pred “B” girls.
Looks sort of like a v-tailed V1.
While I am sure there are good reasons, I’m totally clueless as to why the F-22 or F-35 fighters need escorts. I thought fighters were escorts. Are they decoys? Flak fodder?
I remember two things my step-father predicted in the ‘60s. One, that cars would become so expensive that people would lease them rather than buy them and the other was that piloted aircraft would be replaced by drones. One has kind of come to pass and the other looks to be happening as well. He thought it would happen by the 80s at the latest, but still.
Now about the flying cars we were promised going back to the 40s.
All of the above................
Flying cars will never become a reality for common people.
Hell, they don’t even want us driving Ground Cars!...............
The biggest breakthrough of the F-35 is that it completely changes the concept of weapons load out from what you can carry on the aircraft to what you can deploy with loyal wingmen.
A loyal wingman can carry fuel for you, make an attack run for you, act as a decoy for you or neutralize a SAM -and a lot more
Boeing is (was?) developing it with Australia.
I’m just surprised that AFRL partnered with a small no-name firm. Seems somewhat like Skunk Works winning the XP-80 in 1943.
So what, they’re reusing names now. The XB-70 was called the Valkyrie.
It at least should be called the Valkyrie II, like the F-35 is the Lightning II.
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