Darkstar lives?


Message posted by Magoo on December 08, 2003 at 1:00:50 PST:

Classified aircraft blamed for close calls over Iraq
Aviation Week & Space Technology
12/08/2003, page 21


STEALTHY HAZARDS

Clandestine operations and the use of classified aircraft like Lockheed Martin's stealthy son-of-DarkStar unmanned reconnaissance aircraft are blamed for some worrisome close calls between allied aircraft during this year's conflict in Iraq. "Some people claim they don't have to be part of the air tasking order" that deconflicts warplanes, says a senior Navy official. An aerospace industry official whose unmanned aircraft were wrongly blamed at first for the unexpected in-air encounters agrees. "Some of the classified program consciously chose not to participate in the ATO," he says. "The problem is not deployment of the unmanned systems, but the concept of operation under which they were used. People weren't talking. They assumed they were deconflicted and discovered that they weren't. We're putting up UAVs that can stay aloft for hours whose missions can be replanned in flight. It's going to be interesting when [the faster, stealthy] unmanned combat air vehicle comes along."


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