Message posted by Magoo on February 21, 2001 at 16:52:55 EST:
It looks like 'Aviation Leek & Space Mythology' (sic) has revealed the naval UCAV demonstrator. It is being run in parallel with the Air Force's X-45 program, but is actually about a year behind. the reason for the two seperate programs is because the Air Force and the Navy have differing needs in their UCAV. I doubt a naval program such as this would have been tested at Groom, (more likely Pax River, China Lake or Pt Mugu), in fact I don't think the naval UCAV demonstrator is scheduled to fly until the end of this year. These UCAVs are technology and concept demonstrators only, and have been built at this stage only to test the feasibility of such a machine. The main issue facing potential UCAV operators is control signal bandwidth limitations, i.e. it would be very difficult to fly several UCAVs together at once and control then individually with the systems and technology currently available. There are also many issues relating to how UAV/UCAVs are supposed to interract in civilian airspace. There is no national or international standard yet in place for airways procedures for UAVs. It is generally thought in the defense community that there will be at least one more generation of manned strike aircraft required (after JSF), before the technology has matured to the point where they will be able to replace manned aircraft with UCAVs en masse. In the meantime, look for small, specialist mission UAV/UCAVs to slowly infiltrate the ranks on a semi-operational/test basis. Magoo
In Reply to: New Northrup UCAV posted by RcTeller@aol.com on February 21, 2001 at 10:41:24 EST:
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