This may look likeyour average , everyday X-47B drone landing place , but the feat in the TV above is really evidence of something far more impressive . Over the weekend , this automated flying beastsuccessfully perform a imitation aircraft attack aircraft carrier landing . Meaning that some day shortly , our Navy could actually deploy and engage drones from the sea .
The X-47B Does n’t require A Pilot to Land on an Aircraft Carrier
The ultimate goal is to have the semi - self-governing , long - windedly - named Unmanned Carrier - Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike pilotless aircraft complete these landing place with a single mouse click . But when actual life , breathing Top Gun pilots want to touch down on one of the Navy ’s carriers , they ’re embarking on one of the most difficult maneuver possible : landing on a moving target while arrest hold of something call in an MK-7 arresting gear wheel , which is fundamentally a transmission line that tethers the aircraft and continue it ( and you ) from lurch headlong to a sullen and weak grave .
So it ’s hard enough to successfully capture the cable’s length when you ’re in the front seat much less when you ’re contain the plane from a remote location . Of of course , catching the cable television service on a stationary , grounded simulation of an aircraft carrier ’s landing place bed and actually safely touching down at ocean are still two very different feats . And we ’re still someways off from the authority require to attempt a landing place on the unpredictably roiled , stormy ocean .
grant to Capt . Jaime Engdahi , the X-47B ’s program managing director :
bring an unmanned aircraft on an aircraft attack aircraft carrier will be the greatest singular accomplishment for the UCAS monstrance and will process as the culmination of over a decade of Navy remote-controlled carrier wave consolidation study . Shore - based arrested landing testing here at NAS [ Naval Air Station ] Patuxent River is our net check that the X-47B can meet that aim .
later on this calendar month , we ’ll see if the X-47B can actually take our Navy ’s drone program into unprecedented , nearly undreamed - of district by other nations . Today ’s affirmation did exercise some hesitation , though , emphasiszing that the X-47B will be “ catapult from the attack aircraft carrier deck and potentially discharge landings on circuit card . ” Key intelligence , of course , being “ potentially . ” But with this attractively successful landing place on wry acres , they at least have plenty to be hopeful about . [ wire ]
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