Posted on 01/13/2013 12:21:08 PM PST by blam
Britain's New Stealth Bomber Is Unmanned And Fully Autonomous
Robert Johnson
Jan. 13, 2013, 4:38 AM
Britain's New Stealth Bomber Is Unmanned And Fully Autonomous
BAE Taranis
Britain's Air Force has been using Tornado jets as bombers for decades and is already building a fleet of new Typhoons, but BAE hopes to supplement those forces with a powerful new drone.
The Taranis, named for the Celtic god of thunder will fly faster than the speed of sound and beyond the eye of enemy radar with its single-wing stealth design, and UK officials hope to see it replace piloted planes and current unmanned drones alike.
It's a tall order, but the Taranis already has some nifty technology built into it. In the event the Taranis is spotted and efforts to bring the drone down begun, it can self-evade without input from a controller.
It can also independently identify targets and would only check back with a human controller before initiating an attack. At about $200 million the Taranis prototype isn't cheap, but the RAF believes it's a good investment.
The Telegraph:
Nigel Whitehead, group managing director of programmes at BAE Systems, which has been developing Taranis, said the new drone could change the way aircraft are used by the MoD in the future, which currently uses manned planes for combat missions.
Remote controlled drones such as Reaper are also used by the Ministry of Defence and US military to attack targets ... the Taranis is expected to provide a prototype of a new kind of bomber that will replace piloted planes and the current drones.
Replacing full-sized manned bombers with more than three decades of battle-tested experience is no small feat, and the Taranis, at least this version, isn't terribly large.
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Can skynet be far behind?
The once mighty Royal Navy consists of about 25 destroyers and smaller vessels. Their money s going to house and feed Muslims. What makes you think they’ll actually field any of these?
Looks American.
I guess Black Ops 2 is becoming a little bit more real than I thought
We'll also be able to eliminate the federal highway gasoline tax ~ and some other stuff.
Ping.
“Can skynet be far behind?”
It’s already here and based in the UK!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skynet_(satellite)
Skynet-5D: Military satellite’s classified tech
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20774276
18 December 2012 Last updated at 21:02 ET Help
A powerful new telecommunications satellite is being launched on Wednesday for the British military.
The Skynet-5D spacecraft is the final piece in a multi-billion-pound system that enables UK forces to stay connected wherever they are deployed in the world.
Because it is a military system, Skynet has been designed to evade enemy jamming and eavesdropping, and as such contains a number of classified technologies.
BBC science correspondent Jonathan Amos was granted special access to the spacecraft before its launch.
http://www.astrium.eads.net/en/news2/skynet-5d-launched-by-ariane-5.html
Shocking, I know, but I believe the UK now has about 6 destroyers...?
Fundamental question here. Stealth - low signature. Drone - RF link back to a controller. Isn’t that a basic conflict?
It can be autonomous.
Yeah if it’s transmitting you can target that.
New desktop back ground pic.
Thanks.
probably operates on automatic logic circuits eliminating the need for a direct link for much of its mission. This is a bomber, it just has to fly to a set of way points, drop its payload on a final GPS coordinate, and then return from whence it came via a second set of way points or the same way points. Not a lot of “thought processes” would be required. A fighter plane would have to do a lot more “thinking”.
I think it’s kinda cool.
Don’t know if they’ll eventually develop it or not, but it is cool.
While these very high tech birds are impressive and important in their own right, I suspect that the future of air war will be on the other side of the equation of quality vs. quantity.
Imagine a really cheap UAV, that, along with its engine, fuel tank, simple wire guidance from a simple shielded computer, and 1000lb bomb, is about as expensive as an economy car, say $30,000 each, mass produced.
For the cost of a single B-2 Stealth Bomber, about $750m, you could build 30,000 of these simple drones.
Who could shoot down an air armada of 300 aircraft, much less 3,000? 30,000?
And if you equipped just a few dozen with reasonably good air to air missiles, you could likely get air superiority as well.
The use of the things is simple: Just fill their tank, insert a modular computer brain into them, arm their weapons system, and launch.
“fully autonomous”??
fully?
You mean it decides when and who to attack all by itself? It could just decide one night to go and bomb Scotland, just ‘cuz?
Actually if you slide a Spitfire under it, and tip the UAV`s wing, the gyros will go haywire and it will crash like a V1.
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