Free Republic

The US Navy's new stealth robot carrier plane is now "structurally complete", according to its maker, and is now being fitted out with subsystems while software tests begin. The Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstrator (UCAS-D) is expected to make its first flight the year after next, and its first carrier deck landing in 2011. "Once we get robust flight controls we will begin failure detection and accommodation testing, which is the real key to any unmanned aircraft," said Scott Winship, UCAS-D project chief at Northrop Grumman, talking to Flight International. Although a firm decision by the US Navy to build...

SAN DIEGO, Aug. 6 (UPI) -- Northrop Grumman has won a $635.8 million U.S. contract to carry out at-sea carrier launches and recoveries with a fixed-wing unmanned air system. The program will involve Northrop Grumman's X-47B unmanned air system, or UAS, and will be the first set of trials with such a system ever carried out at sea, the company said in a statement Friday. "The Navy's program, known as the Unmanned Combat Air System Carrier Demonstration (UCAS-D), will demonstrate the capability of an autonomous, low-observable air vehicle. The UCAS-D effort will mature critical technologies, reduce unmanned air system carrier...

PALMDALE - The Navy has awarded a $635.8 million contract to Northrop Grumman Corp. to build a revolutionary pilotless combat plane at the company's facility at Air Force Plant 42. The plane, called the X-47B, will be designed to fly from aircraft carriers and carry out bombing missions and perform extended surveillance. It will use stealth technology designed to make it hard to spot on radar. The six-year contract is part of a Navy program, known as the Unmanned Combat Air System Carrier Demonstration, or UCAS-D, to establish the capability of such a robot plane. Northrop Grumman tested the smaller...