UAV Northrop Grumman X-47B - New Photos
Not many people saw the X-47B from close range: it was mainly its manufacturer Northrop Grumman and test operators of the naval fleet. That was until Tuesday, July 31, 2012, when the Navy Program Executive Office, responsible for developing the so-called Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike System, UCLASS), demonstrated to reporters the X-47B in all its metal flesh.
First impression: it is much more than in photos and video clips. This unit, with a wingspan of 19 meters and bat-shaped chassis, looks even bigger. When he stands on the chassis, you do not leave the feeling that a person may be inside the X-47B (despite the fact that this contradicts his purpose), only now there are not enough stairs. In the end, X-47B to become one of the most autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles at the disposal of the US military.
The idea of UCLASS (X-47B is only a demonstration model), which involves the abandonment of joysticks and computer drives that are used by UAV remote control operators. Instead, thanks to the Northrop software, UAV operators will only indicate where they would like to send the drone. "They are smart enough to act in unforeseen circumstances," said Captain Jaime Engdahl, program manager for unmanned aerial vehicles of the Navy. He has the intelligence to respond to these circumstances. "
The Navy has not really been willing to reveal what is behind the "GPS accuracy" that helps the craft find its aircraft carrier. The Navy was also quick to remind reporters that the X-47B is just a demonstrator, not yet armed or carrying any sensors. The device is located in Pax River, where the catapults and aerofinishers necessary for testing are located. drone and testing assumptions that the navy would indeed be capable of launching an unmanned aircraft from an aircraft carrier and returning it safely. The drone made its first flight into the Pax River on Sunday, a 35-minute flight over Chesapeake Bay at an altitude of 2200 meters and a speed of 333 km/h.
Next year, the Navy plans to launch the X-47B from Pax River to the deck of an aircraft carrier — just with the aforementioned mouse click. The plans consist in taking the drone into service with the Navy for the 2019 year (this date has recently moved a year).
However, even such autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles like the X-47B cannot do without human participation. A Northrop test pilot named Gerrit Everson (Gerrit Everson) can prove it - a white device is attached to his forearm, called a control and display unit. Equipped with six buttons and connected to the batteries located on the Everson belt, it was created by Nintendo to control the device on the deck of an aircraft carrier. The control unit is needed to install the drone on the aircraft carrier's catapult and to take it under control as soon as it lands on the deck, as well as to move the drone along the aircraft carrier. Everson holds the handle and turns his wrist; if X-47 was running, his nose would move with the wrist.
The control and display unit for the X-47B is used to control the drone during taxiing on an aircraft carrier. It is not used for takeoff.
Another thing the navy is going to test is how the crew of an aircraft carrier works with robot-drone. In deck flights aviation there is no room for error, and so far the sailors only knew how to interact with human pilots. At Pax Air Base, a commander named Jeff Dodge explained how the navy “digitized the aircraft carrier” so that the X-47B can better understand everything else that happens on the flight deck in order to integrate it with manned aircraft.
Flight simulation room on the Patuxent River naval aircraft carrier.
There is even a toggle switch that Dodge calls the "Pickle Stick" (push button for longitudinal trimming): that can send a signal that prohibits landing X-47B, if the robot is going to land on the deck at the wrong angle.
At the bottom of the bulba nose behind the chassis is the second set of valves. There, in the cargo hold, the aircraft can carry two 900-kilogram bombs.
The rest of the plane is even stranger than it seems at first glance. To call him a mini-stealth bomber would actually be wrong. There is something fat in him with a stoop back. His wings do not taper; they bulge like bent biceps and a second time around the wingtips. In place of the cockpit, there is a red air intake slot, which makes the car look like a Cylon Raider spaceship from the Battlestar: Galactica television series. He may be in the armament of the aircraft carrier until the end of the decade, but it is not insane to still believe that the X-47B looks like something supernatural.
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