Navy approves contracts to develop carrier based UAV strike and surveillance aircraft

Defense News:
As expected, the US Navy has awarded four development contracts to develop designs to compete for the Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) Air Vehicle.

The contracts — each for $15 million — went to the Boeing Co., St. Louis, Mo.; General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc., Poway, Calif.; Lockheed Martin Corp., Palmdale, Calif.; and Northrop Grumman Systems Corp., El Segundo, Calif.

According to the contract announcements, the preliminary design review assessment is to support UCLASS, a system “to enhance aircraft carrier/air wing operations by providing a responsive, world-wide presence via an organic, sea-based unmanned aerial system, with persistent intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeting, and strike capabilities.”

A presolicitation for the Aug. 14 awards was announced on March 26, with a request for proposals being issued on June 10.

Officials for the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) have said a competition for a final airframe design is expected to begin sometime after January.

The UCLASS is to be an operational, jet-powered aircraft, able to carry out persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions and engage in strike missions at ranges up to 2,000 nautical miles.

The basic technology for a carrier-based, unmanned jet aircraft has been proven by Northrop Grumman’s X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstration (UCAS-D) program, which produced two test aircraft. The first carrier launch of the aircraft took place May 14, and the first landings were performed on July 10, successfully completing the test program requirements.
...
A strike aircraft with a range of 2,000 nautical miles would allow US carriers to launch attacks while staying well out of the range of potential "carrier killer" missiles by countries such as China.  I assume the specs will also include stealth technology that will allow them to evade radar.  The X-47B was an interesting aircraft that used components of existing carrier based aircraft along with drone technology and a stealthy design.  Unlike most other drones it was not piloted so much as programmed.  It appears to leap from much of the current drone tech.  The Navy needs this new aircraft.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t
Read more

Bin Laden's concern about Zarqawi's remains

James Robbins: ... Bin Laden suggests that President Bush should allow Zarqawi’s body to be returned to his family in Jordan, but this is a matter that is up to the Jordanian government, which so far has not shown much interest in facilitating a homecoming. Bin Laden mocks King Abdullah II, calling him a Coalition minion, and asking “w hat scares you about Abu Musab after he’s dead? You know that his funeral, if allowed to happen, would be a huge funeral showing the extent of sympathy with the mujahedin.” A large crowd would definitely turn out, though most people would be on hand to demonstrate their anger and disgust. Last November’s hotel bombings in Amman , masterminded by Zarqawi, are still fresh in people’s memory, and mentioning them to Jordanians has the same visceral impact as memory of the 9/11 attacks does here. Jordan has adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards those who choose to mourn the country’s least favorite son, and four opposition members of parliament who paid con
Read more