Drone fails in third landing attempt
I’m digging through my inbox but I don’t see any emails from the Navy Office of Information about this one; the Stars & Stripes reports in a Virginian-Pilot article, that the Navy’s drone failed on it’s third attempt at landing on a carrier;
After two successful autonomous tailhook landings on the George H.W. Bush on Wednesday, the craft took off for a third attempt. During that flight, one of the three computers used for navigation on the prototype X-47B failed, Rear Adm. Mat Winter told reporters during a conference call Thursday.
The other two computers recognized the failure, and the craft responded the way it was programmed to, he said. It alerted the mission operator, who directed the craft to the nearest landing site on shore, on Wallops Island.
Well, at least, they should be glad that it worked the way it should- it recognized the problem and reported it to the controller. That’s something, right?
Category: Navy
“Well, at least, they should be glad that it worked the way it should- it recognized the problem and reported it to the controller. That’s something, right?”
And that makes it smarter than some pilots.
Nobody is an expert at a third attempt at anything. Give ’em a chance to get their stuff together.
Skynet hasn’t become self-aware yet. They are running behind due to budget cuts.
@3 Nice….who knew the sequester was going to slow our submission to our robot overlords?
At least it didn’t self destruct upon noticing the failure…..(or crash land into the ocean)
I would think that two out of the first three attempts is a good accomplishment, and further, that the system recognized a fault and responded as expected is another accomplishment.
We are on the way to a new method of fighter warfare.
@1, I have to agree with that statement.
Personally, I’ve seen too many movies and read too many books where unmanned armed autonomous units went nuts because of a programming bug. I’d rather have an operator there to actually pull the trigger and fly the thing remotely, than let the computer do all the work. At that point, without it being “three laws safe” we could see a major incident.
The Chinese called and are pissed that they have to keep coming back to steal the system mods.
@8 That’s the trick, making sure the Chinese keep thinking that we are releasing “mods”….
I’m content simply enough with George H.W. Bush name in the article simply because I know it’s causing libtards to stroke after reading it. The testing is irrelevant to me. Mission accomplished!
The CYLONS will take this unit offline and recycle it on the regeneration ship. Skynet has notified all Terminator units to bat the drone out of the sky. Humans will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.
Um, Ex-PH2 . . . I think you’re mixing your Sci-Fi storylines here. Don’t think “resistance is futile, you will be assimilated” is from Battlestar Galactica. (smile)
Oh, they’re all cut from the same cloth, Hondo. BORG (Boring Old Robot Guys), CYLONS (CYbernetic Lifeform Operation Nominal), Skynet/Terminators — they ALL want us to turn Earth over to them, so that all the dogs and cats can run things.
Even Robert Heinlein said it: “Watch out for stobor.”
Don’t think that works, Ex-PH2. Tunnel in the Sky didn’t deal with cybernetic overlords. That was just an invented term to warn of unforeseen dangers.
Now, if you want to talk AM from Ellison’s “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” . . . .
Read that one, too. How about Malcolm Jameson’s “Bullard of the Space Patrol”? He uses a focused radar beam to cook the pirate captain’s brain after his ship is boarded. The description is that of a laser.
Hey, if the Navy’s going try to do the movie Stealth for real, they need Jessica Biel in that tight flight suit too.
Actually, failing in it’s third landing attempt would have meant a crash. This shows it works better than some human pilots…
Does anyone else think they are planning the death knell to piloted carrier planes. I know there will always be a need for a man in the seat on most up close missions. But it seems DoD is out to save a lot of pilot expense in having drones do the heavy stand off fighting. Bomb drops, intel, recon, etc. I hope not. As a troop in the field I did and would feel better having a pilot to take coordinates to lay down fire where needed. I don’t foresee in the near future anyway an all pilotless force, thank God.
Sparks—
There’s a lot of discussion in my community about just that. We’ve even started adding UAS (Unmanned Aerial Systems) units to the Army Combat Aviation Brigade structure; a troop in the Air Cav squadron and a Platoon at brigade level.
That structure functioned quite well in their last rotation through theater.
None of us, however, believe we will ever see fully-automated or pilotless air units. Most think something more along the lines of Dale Brown’s vision in the Dreamland series.
We told the ANA Troops we were working with in A-stan that our RQ-11 Ravens were piloted by specially trained mice
Much to their delight and amazement
@20 LOL
Hey, it caught the three wire twice before the malfunction. I wonder how many Ensigns do as well on their first carrier quals. Hitting the three wire is an exercise in airspeed control what is better than that than a three brained computer? It would be interesting to see how many wave offs and bolters the average new pilot does on this first try for quals. Plus the drone doesn’t suffer from pucker factor, automatic rough, or have to add ten knots for the wife and kids.
Ex-PH2: sounds more like a device called a maser than a laser, actually. The word maser is derived from the acronym “microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation”. The device actually predates the laser by a number of years.
Most working masers don’t produce enough power to be particularly useful except as frequency sources or in certain niche RF amplification uses. However, even today they’re still being investigated for potential use as directed energy weapons.
Yeah, Jameson didn’t actually name it, he just described it and it sounded like a laser=based idea, same principle but uses a radar beam, gold wire coiled around the antenna arm, and a synthetic ruby as a focusing device. He wrote that in the 1940s, before any of those things were produced. He also described in one episode/chapter a game using mirrors to repel destructive light beams (sounds like high-end lasers to me) and defeat the crew’s opponents.
On the other hand, Bullard does an EVA wearing only a helmet and no spacesuit, so it was considered a bit far-fetched at the time, whereas Heinlein, in “Have Spacesuit – Will Travel” describes Peewee’s new spacesuit from Mother Thing’s people as having an oxygen supply and a helmet that was solid if you slapped it, but allowed you to slowly pass your hand through it without a barrier. As Kip describes it, it made him feel kind of like a tired bear lumbering around in Oscar.
Two questions. First, why is there a cockpit windshield? Second, is that a Rainbow bumper sticker on its tail?
I’m telling you, Skynet is watching all of this and taking notes.