Article

2011-09-12 Science & Technology

US Navy Wants To Replace F-35s With X-47B and other full size UAVs

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Posted by Water Modem 2011-09-12 12:37|| || Front Page|| [3 views ] Top

#1 Makes sense and it is the future. I can see the future carriers being only manned with enough people to keep the planes and electronics running, and it has hundreds of unmanned planes that can all shoot out of multiple launch tubes at once during a scramble.
The thought of 400 highly mobile and lethal drones being launched in the space of 10 minutes gives me a chubby.

Posted by DarthVader 2011-09-12 12:45|| 2011-09-12 12:45|| Front Page Top

#2 An aircraft carrier is made for an aircraft payload. Big and vulnerable.
A UAV carrier should be much smaller, and therefore a harder target for anti-carrier attacks.

Personally, I'd like to see sub launched UAV's.

Posted by flash91 2011-09-12 13:05|| 2011-09-12 13:05|| Front Page Top

#3 Eh, bomber-grade drones are not that much smaller than carrier fighter-bombers, and in order to produce a fighter-grade drone, you'll probably have to bulk it up enough to handle the g-stresses. Not to mention the stealthing upgrades and the like. We're probably not talking about that much of a deckspace savings.

Drone development so far has been rather... low-performance as I understand it. They've been putting glorified gliders into combat situations, mostly because the US/NATO generally deploys them in air supremacy situations. The value is for loiter time and precision, not speed, maneuverability or payload.

Also, drones assume open & free communications. Any enemy who's capable enough to contest airspace is going to be capable enough to engage in ECM warfare, aren't they? Suddenly your hypothetical high-performance remote-controlled hunter-killer drone finds itself slow-gliding into the side of a wave because the signals been jammed, and boy, don't you wish you had a pilot in theatre now, don't you?

Posted by Mitch H. 2011-09-12 13:32|| http://blogfonte.blogspot.com/ 2011-09-12 13:32|| Front Page Top

#4 Meh, it's just a different problem to solve. Give the UAV the ability to receive signals on 1000 different methods of communication, including satellite. Sure, it's a vulnerability, but so is not being able to pull a 15G turn. In the event of no communication, give the drone instructions on how to behave autonomously.

The real risk isn't jamming IMO, it's putting chips into the UAV that have been programmed at the factory to respond to a coded signal from China. The UAV then fires all its missiles at the nearest friendly vehicles or kamikazes into the carrier's island.

Posted by gromky 2011-09-12 13:57|| 2011-09-12 13:57|| Front Page Top

#5 Unmanned Combat AVs are more than comms jammed into a current system - they are intended eventually to be semi- or fully autonomous fighters rather than the remotely piloted platforms currently deployed as sensor platforms.

Posted by lotp 2011-09-12 14:30|| 2011-09-12 14:30|| Front Page Top

#6 The F-22's airframe and electronics can already pull near 20gs in a turn. They have to put inhibitors into the fly-by-wire system to keep the pilot alive. If they have a frequency hopping system to control a UAV like they do with the radios, then jamming will be difficult. Not impossible, but it makes for a really nice target for our HARMS. Add in a little AI for communication loss so the plan will continue its mission and you have a highly efficient and lethal mix.

Posted by DarthVader 2011-09-12 15:18|| 2011-09-12 15:18|| Front Page Top

#7 Personally, I'd like to see sub launched UAV's

They already have UAVs. They're called 'Harpoons and 'Tomahawks'.

Now if you want UAVs that are more like manned aircraft (like being able to land), that's a whole 'nother story.

Posted by Pappy 2011-09-12 17:55|| 2011-09-12 17:55|| Front Page Top

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