PrairiePundit

National Interests: Along with a new air superiority fighter, the United States Navy must develop a new long-range unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) to counter rapidly emerging anti-access/area-denial threats, particularly in the Western Pacific. The Navy would also have to develop another separate unmanned aircraft for the aerial refueling tanker role. In a new report commissioned by the U.S. Navy, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments lays out the case for developing such capabilities. “The worst-case scenario for a conflict under the proposed fleet architecture would be to have no indications or warning of imminent aggression with the Maneuver Force at the farthest reach of its Indo–Asia–Pacific area of operations,” the report states. “The Maneuver Force could start from the Western Indian Ocean or Central Pacific Ocean when conflict breaks out and arrive about 2000 nm from the Chinese coast when the Deterrence Force needs to withdraw after 2 days of combat.” Ho...

Military.com: The Navy is working on a deal with Lockheed Martin to integrate its new, autonomously guided Long Range Anti-Ship Missile onto an F/A-18 Super Hornet aircraft, giving the fighter an increased ability to identify and strike targets at longer ranges from the air, service and Lockheed officials explained. In development since with the Navy and the Pentagon’s research arm, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, the so-called LRASM weapon is being developed as a long-range air, surface and submarine-launched missile able to track and destroy targets autonomously or semi-autonomously. Not much detail about its seeker technology, range or guidance systems is publically available – as much of the program is secret. However, Lockheed officials have said the weapon has an unclassified range of 200 nautical miles, a distance which is likely to be well short of its actual range. Also, LRASM does use an autonomous guidance technology designed to allow the weapon ...

Popular Mechanics: The Unmanned X-47B Just Pulled Off a Mid-Air Refueling Look ma, no pilot This drone already has greater range than manned flights and this capacity will allow it to stay on station longer.  It is a full fledged bomber.

Daily Mail: Does China have a SUPERSONIC drone? Claims secret 'Dark Sword' project may already have flown Experts have claimed that China's drone, called Dark Sword, is under secret development. There is a video at the above link along with photos of the Brit designed drone.  While a supersonic drone can get over target quickly it would probably require programming of the on board cameras to capture images that are something more than just a blur. Their more likely use is as a weapon delivery system like the US Navy's X-47B. which is designed to operate off a carrier and has a range much greater than a manned aircraft.

Daily Mail: Will future fighter jets be flown by ROBOTS? Pentagon plans to have artificially intelligent pilots in its next-generation aircraft The Pentagon in Virginia is planning to introduce artificial intelligence to jets (F/A-XX concept shown). The plan it to use AI as co-pilots to humans to help with sensory data and landings. It could be especially helpful for the high stress carrier landings in the Navy.  They are already using robotics for the experimental X-47B which has taken off and landed on a carrier with no pilot on board.  For bombers the pilotless aircraft  can launch further from the target and keep the carriers out of range of the carrier killer missiles of th enemy.

Daily Mail: The U.S. Navy has carried out ground breaking tests of its unmanned drone X-47B alongside a manned F/A-18 fighter jet. The tests were conducted on the carrier deck of the Theodore Roosevelt in the eastern Atlantic Ocean on August 17. It was the first time that the two aircraft have operated from the same carrier. Capt. Beau Duarte said: ‘Today we showed that the X-47B could take off, land and fly in the carrier pattern with manned aircraft while maintaining normal flight deck operations.’ ... There is much more including photos of the join operations.  I think the X-47B should be the future of Navy attack aircraft because it has a longer range than manned flights and the carrier can stay further from harms way.

Washington Times: The Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) system is just what it sounds like: “Top Gun” for drones. The U.S. Navy issued a “restricted” draft request for proposals for the carrier-based drone on April 17 and has already narrowed down the field of companies vying for chance to work on the project. Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Atomics and Northrop Grumman have been involved in the project in some capacity, technology website Ars Technica reported Tuesday. While the Navy seems to have wrestled with what exactly its new drones will be capable of, members of Congress want UCLASS aircraft that could essentially provide the strike capability possessed by humans. ... “We’re talking Tomcat size [drones],” the Navy ’s director of air warfare, Rear Adm. Mike Manazir, told the U.S. Naval Institute News of the new vision, Ars Technica reported. “We have heavy-end ISR and strike capability with some growth in the ability to carry weapons and s...

USNI: Could the U.S. Navy’s future Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) aircraft have an air-to-air role? The service’s director of air warfare Rear Adm. Mike Manazir posed that it could during a Dec. 20 interview with USNI News. Manazir contemplated the possibility that that the UCLASS, which is primarily being designed for the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and strike roles, could be used as a flying missile magazine which could supplement the firepower of the F/A-18E/F and F-35C Joint Strike Fighter in air-to-air combat as a robotic wingman of sorts. “Maybe we put a whole bunch of AMRAAMs (Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile) on it and that thing is the truck,” Manazir said. “So this unmanned truck goes downtown with—as far as it can go—with a decision-maker.” In Manazir’s vision the UCLASS could be commanded remotely from a Northrop Grumman E-2D Hawkeye or a Lockheed Martin F-35C Joint Strike Fighter flight leader. The conc...

USNI.org: The U.S. Navy expects to undertake an analysis of alternatives (AoA) for its F/A-XX next-generation replacement for the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet starting in fiscal year 2015. The new aircraft and its associated “family of systems” would be expected to become operational around 2035. ... The Navy does not yet know what kind of aircraft the F/A-XX will be, but the service is working on defining exactly what capabilities it will need when the Super Hornet fleet starts to exhaust their 9,000-hour airframe lives around 2035. ... Though the Navy does not yet have a concrete vision for what the F/A-XX might ultimately turn out to be, there are certain attributes the service must have. “You have to have something that carries missiles, you have to have something that has enough power and cooling for directed energy weapons and you have to have something that has a weapons system that can sense the smallest radar cross-section targets,” Manazir said. The F/A-XX family of syste...

The Diplomat: The U.S. military is increasing its spending on capabilities to implement an Air-Sea Battle (ASB) concept to overcome adversaries’ anti-access area denial (A2/AD) strategies, according to a new industry report. The report by G-2 Solutions , a market intelligence firm, analyzes the “Fiscal Year 2014 Navy and Air Force procurement and RDT&E budgets through the Air-Sea Battle (ASB) lens.” From these, G-2 Solutions deemed a total of 191 programs and program elements to be included in the report, based on the “increased importance their capabilities will bring to an aggregate Air-Sea Battle capability.” In total, the U.S. military will spend $31 billion more in FY 2014 versus FY 2012 on ASB enabling capabilities. Altogether, G-2 Solutions predicts that the U.S. Air Force (USAF) and U.S. Navy (USN) will spend $524.5 billion on ASB capabilities through 2023. The report—which is entitled, “Air-Sea Battle FY2014: Concepts, Key Programs and Forecast (AB098)”– breaks down th...

War Is Boring: The U.S. Navy has tweaked the specifications of its new robotic warplane, newly stressing its ability evade enemy radars and refuel in mid-air. The result will be a much deadlier killer drone—and one that over time, with upgrades, could grow even more dangerous to America’s enemies. It almost didn’t work out this way. Way back in 2007, the Navy paid drone-maker Northrop Grumman a billion dollars to build a pair of “demonstrator” robots for tests about the fleet’s nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. The idea was to gather the data necessary to build the world’s first front-line, jet-powered, armed drone—one with the added ability to take off from and land aboard the flattops’ thousand-foot steel decks. But before the pair of autonomous X-47B demonstrators—62 feet from wingtip to wingtip, 22 tons fully loaded—began launching and landing on carriers this summer, the Navy seemed to lose its nerve. The follow-on combat-ready robot, known as Unmanned Carrier-Launched Surve...

The Independent on Sunday: Rather like a dog with a rubber bone, the Crusher likes to toy with its prey. After first sizing it up, it leaps, rolling and gripping its target until it is sufficiently chewed up and “dead”. Unlike a dog, the Crusher is capable of performing this feat on a line of parked cars. More disturbingly, this six-tonne, six-wheeled monster developed for America’s Department of Defence and otherwise known as the Unmanned Ground Combat Vehicle, or UGV, can pounce without the intervention or say-so of a human operator. It is an ability which, in theory, can stretch to firing the machine-gun mounted on its roof. The UGV is a forerunner of what many in the defence world believe is the next quantum leap in warfare – a generation of fully autonomous weapons which would be capable of crossing one of the great Rubicons of modern conflict by “deciding” for themselves when to take human life. In the words of one US general, they are the harbingers of an age where “death ...

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 fi...

Fox News: For the first time ever, a fighter jet-sized drone piloted entirely by computer landed on a modern aircraft carrier. The successful touch down paves the way for unmanned aircraft to operate alongside traditional airplanes, providing around-the-clock surveillance while also possessing strike capability. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus was clearly aware of the import of the historic moment. "It isn't very often you get a glimpse of the future,” Mabus said in a statement. "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." The X-47B experimental aircraft took off from Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland before approaching the USS George H.W. Bush, which is operating off the coast of Virginia. The drone landed by deploying a tailhook that caught a wire aboard the ship, bringing it to a quick stop, just like normal fighter jets d...

Stars and Stripes: The Navy will attempt to land a drone the size of a fighter jet aboard an aircraft carrier for the first time Wednesday, showcasing the military's capability to have a computer program perform one of the most difficult tasks a pilot is asked to do. If all goes as planned, a successful landing of the X-47B experimental aircraft will mean the Navy can move forward with its plans to develop another unmanned aircraft that will join the fleet alongside traditional airplanes to provide around-the-clock surveillance while also possessing a strike capability. The aircraft's success would pave the way for the U.S. to launch unmanned aircraft without the need to obtain permission from other countries to use their bases. The X-47B experimental aircraft will take off from Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland before approaching the USS George H.W. Bush, which is operating off the coast of Virginia. The drone will try to land by deploying a tailhook that will...

LA Times: Far beyond the electronic security gates and razor-wire topped fences, Col. Rod Cregier surveys a team of technicians busily readying a lithe F-35 fighter jet for its next test flight. As the F-35 program director at the base, Cregier and his team play a crucial role in a nationwide military effort to get the high-tech jet ready for battle. After a decade of administrative problems, cost overruns and technical glitches, the F-35 is still not ready for action. The program has consistently come under political attack even though the military considers it crucial to the nation's defense needs. Cregier believes the program is finally on course and said he is convinced that the jet can successfully replace the military's aging fighter fleets — some 34 years old — though he does not downplay the significant challenges his team faces. "This is an incredibly complex aircraft, the most complex aircraft ever built," Cregier said. "Getting it right isn't ea...

WSJ: The Navy’s prototype drone, the X-47B, successfully catapulted off a carrier Tuesday — one small step for a drone, one giant leap for dronekind. The X-47B launched from the USS George H.W. Bush at 11:18 a.m., according to a Navy spokesman. The plane flew a couple of approaches and landed at Naval Air Station Patuxent River. The drone has completed a tailhook landing at Patuxent before, but Navy officials have said they will test its ability to land on an actual carrier in the near future. Lawmakers and Navy officials hailed the successful flight. “If the U.S. Navy is to maintain its technological edge in the years ahead, our continued investment in potential game-changing technologies … will be essential,” said Rep. Randy Forbes (R., Va.). Navy officials say the $1.4 billion X-47B prototype program will lead to a full Navy drone program designed to begin fielding drones on all Navy carriers between 2017 and 2020 . But Tuesday’s flight was a major milestone, which Na...

IBD: As Korea festers, our friends in Beijing have deployed near Taiwan a powerful missile designed to take out U.S. aircraft carriers as Beijing strengthens its ability to prevent U.S. forces from aiding Taiwan. When North Korea announced the 1953 Armistice was considered null and void and threatened renewed missile tests, the U.S. rushed naval assets to the region, including two destroyers equipped with the Aegis anti-missile defense system. We presumably would do so if things heated up between Beijing and its claimed "lost province," Taiwan. That option became increasingly problematical when news of China's deployment of an anti-ship ballistic missile near Taiwan came in written testimony by the Pentagon's head of intelligence, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, delivered to a Senate committee on Thursday. The missile, designated the DF-21D, is one of a "growing number of conventionally armed" new weapons China is deploying to the region, adding to more than 1...

Washington Post: The Obama administration is nearing completion of a detailed counterterrorism manual that is designed to establish clear rules for targeted-killing operations but leaves open a major exemption for the CIA’s campaign of drone strikes in Pakistan, U.S. officials said. The carve-out would allow the CIA to continue pounding al-Qaeda and Taliban targets for a year or more before the agency is forced to comply with more stringent rules spelled out in a classified document that officials have described as a counterterrorism “playbook.” The document, which is expected to be submitted to President Obama for final approval within weeks, marks the culmination of a year-long effort by the White House to codify its counterterrorism policies and create a guide for lethal operations through Obama’s second term. A senior U.S. official involved in drafting the document said that a few issues remain unresolved but described them as minor. The senior U.S. official said the playbook “wi...

It looks a lot like the X-47B.   The aircraft is 10 meters long with a wingspan of 12.5 meters and weighs five tons.  It also looks a little like the US stealth craft Iran brought down.