In the offshore air war of the future, the Navy will launch attack aircraft from its carriers which will go after enemy air defenses, command and control facilities, perform recon and commit electronic warfare, much as they do now.
In the coming scenario, however, the airplanes will be uninhabited by human beings. Their "pilots" will be sitting in a command and control facility aboard the ship (or perhaps in an AWACS orbiting overhead) or the aircraft will be just following pre-programmed computer instructions.
This is the future world of the "J-UCAS" program (Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems), meaning the aircraft will operate jointly with the Navy and Air Force. The Pentagon is so committed to the concept that it has allocated two billion dollar programs: one to Northrop/Grumman and the other to Boeing, for the X-47B and X-45 respectively.
Last month, to underscore that commitment, Northrop held a news conference on the former USS Midway in San Diego to announce that the Defense Research Projects Agency, through which the money was funneled, had awarded a $30 million installment to pay for three X-47Bs, the carrier-based version of their unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV). Seventy percent of the aircraft's early stages and development will take place in San Diego at Northrop Grumman's Integrated Systems unit.
Northrop plans to actually build the X-47B prototypes at its plant in Palmdale, Calif.
Both robotic aircraft represent a new generation of unmanned air vehicles which began in the 1990s with spy planes like the propeller-driven Predator made by San Diego's General Atomics Aeronautical Systems.
The Navy and Air Force argue that UCAVs are not intended to replace any manned tactical aircraft, but instead will augment them. The USAF has already started advertising for people to join-up as warrant officer UCAV "pilots" and NCO mission specialists.
The J-UCAS aircraft must, as a minimum, have an operational radius of 1,300 miles, a two hour loiter capability at a 1,000 mile range and carry at least 4,500 pounds of weapons and equipment. It must also use a Common Operating System to let it operate with and be operated by appropriate allied forces and task groups.
Northrop Grumman prototypes are each about the size of the Navy's F/A-18 Super Hornet jet fighter and would be used chiefly for ground attack missions, rather than air-to-air combat with hostile aircraft. That's the plane for now, anyway.
Robert A.K. Mitchell, chief of advanced systems development at Northrop Grumman's Rancho Bernardo facility, said the company will likely hire 120 engineers and others to help develop the complex software, electronics and communications equipment needed to fly the unmanned jet.
Northrop announced in June that it demonstrated a shipboard mission-control system that would allows unmanned combat aircraft to operate aboard conventional aircraft carriers, using a software system mounted on a Beech King Air. With the new software, the UCAV's will respond to voice commands from the carrier the same as a pilot in a manned aircraft so they can loiter or enter a holding pattern, in cases of fouled deck emergencies or for some other reason.
It wasn't clear if the aircraft will take commands from the Landing Signals Officer or, using their onboard GPS navigation systems, find their own way to the three wire.
Northrop still faces daunting challenges, the company conceded. For example, carrier based aircraft must be able to withstand high structural loads.
Moreover, carriers also generate a variety of radio and radar signals which could pose a challenge for UCAVs operated by remote control. The Air Force and Navy also employ different methods for aerial refueling and the robotic aircraft must be able to use either one.
Work on this phase of the program is scheduled for completion in September 2009.
Related development work will take place in Costa Mesa, Torrance and Irvine, Calif.; St. Louis; East Hartford, Conn.; Clearwater, Fla.; Grand Rapids, Mich.; Buffalo, N.Y.; Rockford, Ill.; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; and Burnsville, Minn.
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