Navy’s first drone carrier landings
The Navy’s Office of Information sent us pictures and videos of the first carrier landing of a drone on the USS George HW Bush yesterday. Here’s a video of the first and second landings;
USS GEORGE H. W. BUSH, At Sea (NNS) — The X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) demonstrator completed its first carrier-based arrested landing on board USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) off the coast of Virginia July 10.
“It isn’t very often you get a glimpse of the future. Today, those of us aboard USS George H.W. Bush got that chance as we witnessed the X-47B make its first ever arrested landing aboard an aircraft carrier,” said Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus. “The operational unmanned aircraft soon to be developed have the opportunity to radically change the way presence and combat power are delivered from our aircraft carriers.”
Today’s demonstration was the first time a tailless, unmanned autonomous aircraft landed on a modern aircraft carrier.
This test marks an historic event for naval aviation that Navy leaders believe will impact the way the Navy integrates manned and unmanned aircraft on the carrier flight deck in the future.
“Today we witnessed the capstone moment for the Navy UCAS program as the team flawlessly performed integrated carrier operations aboard USS George H.W. Bush with the X-47B aircraft,” said Capt. Jaime Engdahl, Navy UCAS Program Manager. “Our precision landing performance, advanced autonomous flight controls and digital carrier air traffic control environment are a testament to the innovation and technical excellence of the Navy and Northrop Grumman team.”
The July 10 landing was the final part of three at-sea test periods for X-47B during the last eight months, culminating a decade of Navy unmanned integration efforts that show the Navy’s readiness to move forward with unmanned carrier aviation says Rear Adm. Mat Winter, who oversees the Program Executive Office for Unmanned Aviation and Strike Weapons in Patuxent River, Md.
“This demonstration has enabled us to merge industry and government technologies together which will enable the U.S. Navy to pursue future unmanned aviation carrier capabilities,” said Winter, who witnessed the historic landing. “The government engineering and testing team in partnership with our Northrop Grumman team members have matured the technologies in this X-47B system to position us for today’s event, which marks a milestone in naval aviation.”
During today’s testing, the X-47B completed the 35-minute transit from Pax River to the carrier and caught the 3 wire with the aircraft’s tailhook. The arrested landing effectively brought the aircraft from approximately 145 knots to stop in less than 350 feet.
Shortly after the initial landing, the aircraft was launched off the ship using the carrier’s catapult. The X-47B then proceeded to execute one more arrested landing.
“We have been using the same [carrier] landing technology for more than 50 years now and the idea that we can take a large UAV and operate in that environment is fascinating,” said Capt. Jaime Engdahl, Navy UCAS program manager. “When I think about all of the hours and all of the work-ups the team put into executing this event, I had no doubt the air vehicle was going to do exactly what it was supposed to do.”
“Across the entire spectrum of military operations, an integrated force of manned and unmanned platforms is the future,” said Secretary of the Navy (SECNAV) Ray Mabus. “The X-47B’s autonomous arrested landing aboard USS George H.W. Bush shows how the Navy and Marine Corps are riding the bow wave of technological advances to create this 21st century force.”
The X-47B spent several weeks aboard aircraft carriers in recent months. The Navy UCAS program successfully completed CVN deck operations aboard USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) in December 2012 and aboard Bush in May. During the May underway period, the X-47B completed its first-ever catapult launch. Since May, the integrated test team conducted a number of shore-based arrestments at Pax River in preparation for the demonstration aboard the ship.
“We have learned a lot from our flight deck operations, our shore-based flight test and extensive modeling and simulation,” Engdahl added. “Our team has executed all major program objectives and developed the concept of operations and demonstrated technologies for a future unmanned carrier-based aircraft capability. [Today] we have proven we can seamlessly integrate unmanned systems into the carrier environment.”
“We have certainly come a long way in the 102 years since Eugene Ely made the first arrested landing aboard an aircraft carrier. Naval aviators have always been at the forefront of operational and tactical innovation, and today was no exception,” said Mabus. “People make unmanned aviation possible and it is people who will provide the fresh thinking and new ideas so crucial to successes like the X-47B program and the unmanned aircraft of the future.”
The Navy will continue to update this story as more information from today’s demonstration is made available.
For more information on USS George H.W. Bush follow the ship’s fan page on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/USSGeorgeHWBush.
Category: Navy
The CYLONS are coming! The CYLONS are coming!
So instead of tanned Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer playing shirtless volley ball, from now on it’ll be a bunch of pasty, pudgy computer nerds playing World of Warcraft. Cue Kenny Loggins’ “Playing with the Boys” over a montage of geeks playing WoW.
Pretty brave people to be standing on the deck in front of the UAV when it came in…
My concern, as always, is attacks upon this system’s weak link: The data stream. As the US Navy moves more and more into coordinated platforms and systems that rely upon digital data transfers, all it takes is for one EMP burst to knock out as substantial portion of our seaborne assets.
Look at it this way: Without sufficient hardening, an EMP burst will destroy the circuits needed to operate the UCAS. The platform itself is tailless, and thus inherently unstable. It MUST have constant input from it’s sensors to the onboard computers to remain stable while in flight. If those are damaged, the controller, no matter his (or her) piloting skills will be unable to control the UCAS.
The same goes for the loss of any of our constellation of satellites for comms and GPS. The data link streams for ALL of these systems are routed through satellites and depend as well upon GPS data for navigation and weapons accuracy. If we lose those, and I expect we will very shortly, if not immediately upon the commencement of hostilities, then our military, and especially our Naval forces are crewed big time.
In short, if I were a 1st or 2nd world power about to go to war with these United States, for whatever reason, I’d try very hard to both drop one or more EMP bursts above our nation as well as our Carrier Battle Groups, and also attack our satellites. Both China and Russia have these capabilities, and it’s quite likely that India and Pakistan will also have them, if they do not already.
Just food for thought.
This level of capacity is only the beginning, the future indeed….
For every one or two of these very capable UAV’s there will be 70 to 80 aircraft onboard the aircraft carrier.
Awesome technology and perfect landing HooYah to the joint team that makes it work.
Now for some satire:
I know that you all believe the Navy is all about “TOP GUN” and I might have to agree with you to some extent because in 1986 (there abouts) the movie did help attract the pilots and Sailors we needed to man the coming 600 ship Navy and the new generation of fighter bombers.
But there was a secret behind the movie, more subversive than anyone could have imagined:
View this short video and you will see!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyN8VN4BSzM
Enjoy!
Swordfight!!!
Regarding Top Gun: I grew up around Army Aviators. As soon as I saw the “finger scene” in the film, I knew that one was based on reality.
I’m pretty sure I found out what incident several years later, while reading Ben Rich’s book “Skunk Works” about the Lockheed Corporations special projects facility of the same name. (The P-38, F-104, U-2, SR-71, and F-117A were all developed there, all but the last under Kelly Johnson.) The incident I’m speaking of occurred during either the aftermath of the Gulf of Sidra incident or the recon prep for Eldorado Canyon (don’t have the book handy, so can’t confirm which – I think it was prior to Eldorado Canyon, but I’m not positive).
I can’t find the book on-line, but as I recall the incident is essentially as described here. The only discrepancy between this and what I remember from the account in Rich’s book (it was a pilot account included in the book in a section devoted to same) was that Rich’s book indicated that the French asked for a “diplomatic clearance number” vice a “reservation number”.
The timing is very tight – but the two incidents are simply too similar for me to believe that the film’s producers didn’t get wind of the SR-71 incident via “RUMINT” and incorporate it into the film. And IMO yeah: from what I’ve seen, an aviator might indeed do exactly that in either situation. (smile)
Hondo … I believe it was Navy Ace Flyier (Now Felon) CDR Randy ‘Duke” Cunningham!
Heh.
I can’t help but wonder how long it’ll be before we start hearing crap like the old “we don’t need guns on our fighters anymore! Rockets are so tech sexy sweet!!”
Or “we don’t need that ugly, untechy A10 any more! We’ve got Mavericks!”
Or “all that really matters in a fighter is straight line speed! To hell with agility!!”
Poo poo it all you want… but the next thing you know, some numbnuts with way more rank than sense might even start saying we need women in the infantry!
I’m sure drones have their place… and I’m also damned sure that before long, we’re gonna see drones replacing what we actually do need to get the job done. That sort of thing is, after all, about as well an established pattern as our nation’s own inability to even comprehend what it means to actually fight a war to win it anymore.
@10. Here I will respectfully disagree with you. As it pertains to air combat, the limiting factor in fighter aircraft design, be it straight line speed or agility, is the pilot(s). The human body can only take so many G’s, so if you take the human out of the aircraft, you can design a much more capable aircraft.
Just look at how much more payload they will be able to carry now that the Aircraft does not have to tote around the Pilots EGO.
@11 – LebbenB, that’s why the CYLONS were invented.
Skynet goes online at 13:45:05 on Sept 15, 2015. Be prepared, humans.
@4 Any EMP attack upon a UAV in combat would knock out the whole carrier anyways so it doesn’t matter if the aircraft is manned or not. As for hitting the US with an EMP, that would require a nuclear missile launch which we would be more that able to answer back.
@13. I, for one, welcome our electronic overlords…
So I can shoulder my 40-watt plasma rifle and pop some mechanical heads
Got your back on that, LebbenB. The toasters are TOAST!!!!!
@11:
Where I disagree with you is in much the same issue, but on the reverse side.
Take the pilot out of the fighter and you’ve taken the fight out of the fighter.
In cockpit, real time decision making speed will always trump that of someone remoting a fighter from thousands of miles away.
Great, they got the three wire on what looks to be a bright sunshiny day and flat calm seas. I’ll be impressed when they do in at night, no moon, 10-15 foot following swells, a cross wind, and the deck corkscrewing like a slinky on steroids.
@18 – Yes, how much of my tax money are those things going to cost?
#17 – If they design the cockpit right, they can have a mannequin bust and a head that can look around on a swivel and give a full 360 view of the situation, and play it live-feed back to the control center – like the robot taxi driver on “Total Recall”.