Increased Test Productivity Lifts Off With First Flight of Second Northrop Grumman-Built X‑47B Unmanned Aircraft

Expan­sion of Fleet Adds Momen­tum, Flex­i­bil­i­ty to Flight Test Pro­gram
EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif., Nov. 28, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Northrop Grum­man Cor­po­ra­tion (NYSE:NOC) and the U.S. Navy will be able to increase the pace and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty of the X‑47B flight test pro­gram fol­low­ing the suc­cess­ful first flight Nov. 22 of the sec­ond air vehi­cle devel­oped for the Navy’s Unmanned Com­bat Air Sys­tem Car­ri­er Demon­stra­tion (UCAS‑D) program.

 -
The avail­abil­i­ty of two X‑47B unmanned air­craft enables the UCAS‑D pro­gram to con­duct a faster and more pro­duc­tive flight test pro­gram.
Source: Northrop Grum­man
Click to enlarge

The tail­less, autonomous air­craft known as Air Vehi­cle 2 (AV‑2) took off under hazy skies from Edwards Air Force Base at 12:43 p.m. PST, climbed rapid­ly to an alti­tude of 5,000 feet, flew sev­er­al race­track pat­terns over Rogers Dry Lake, then land­ed safe­ly at 1:12 p.m.

The suc­cess­ful addi­tion of AV‑2 to the fleet of X‑47B test air­craft pro­vides a crit­i­cal inflec­tion point for the UCAS‑D pro­gram,” said Carl John­son, vice pres­i­dent and UCAS‑D pro­gram man­ag­er for Northrop Grumman’s Aero­space Sys­tems sec­tor. “With two air­craft now avail­able, we can increase the amount of air­craft per­for­mance data we gath­er, which will allow us to meet our required air­craft capa­bil­i­ty demon­stra­tion goals in a time­ly manner.”

The avail­abil­i­ty of two test air­craft is par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant, added John­son, for help­ing the pro­gram main­tain a sat­is­fac­to­ry flight test rhythm as it begins tran­si­tion­ing X‑47B air­craft to Naval Air Sta­tion Patux­ent Riv­er, Md., (Pax Riv­er) for shore-based car­ri­er suit­abil­i­ty test­ing. While one air­craft is being moved to Pax Riv­er – expect­ed to occur by the end of 2011 – the oth­er one will con­tin­ue enve­lope expan­sion flight test­ing at Edwards.

The test­ing at Pax Riv­er is sched­uled to begin in ear­ly 2012. It will include test­ing the X‑47B’s abil­i­ty to con­duct pre­ci­sion approach­es to the car­ri­er, and to per­form arrest­ed land­ings and “roll-out” cat­a­pult launch­es at land-based test facil­i­ties. The test­ing will also include flight test­ing pre­ci­sion nav­i­ga­tion com­put­ers and new guid­ance, nav­i­ga­tion and con­trol soft­ware recent­ly installed on both air­craft. The new suite of hard­ware and soft­ware will enable the X‑47B to make pre­ci­sion land­ings on a mov­ing car­ri­er deck.

The X‑47B is a com­put­er-con­trolled unmanned air­craft sys­tem that takes off, flies a pre­pro­grammed mis­sion, and then returns to base – all in response to mouse clicks from a mis­sion oper­a­tor. The oper­a­tor active­ly mon­i­tors the X‑47B air vehicle’s oper­a­tion using sim­ple sit­u­a­tion­al aware­ness dis­plays, but does not fly it via remote con­trol, as some unmanned sys­tems are operated.

The Navy award­ed the UCAS‑D prime con­tract to Northrop Grum­man in August 2007. The con­tract calls for the devel­op­ment and flight test­ing of two strike-fight­er-sized X‑47B unmanned air­craft. In 2013, the pro­gram is sched­uled to demon­strate the first car­ri­er launch­es and recov­er­ies by a tail­less, unmanned, low-observ­able-rel­e­vant air­craft. Autonomous aer­i­al refu­el­ing demon­stra­tions are planned for 2014. For the lat­est X‑47B news and infor­ma­tion, please vis­it www.as.northropgrumman.com/products/nucasx47b/.

Northrop Grumman’s UCAS‑D joint indus­try team includes GKN Aero­space, Lock­heed Mar­tin, Pratt & Whit­ney, Eaton, Gen­er­al Elec­tric, Hamil­ton Sund­strand, Dell, Hon­ey­well, Goodrich, Moog, Wind Riv­er, Park­er Aero­space and Rock­well Collins.

Northrop Grum­man is a lead­ing glob­al secu­ri­ty com­pa­ny pro­vid­ing inno­v­a­tive sys­tems, prod­ucts and solu­tions in aero­space, elec­tron­ics, infor­ma­tion sys­tems, and tech­ni­cal ser­vices to gov­ern­ment and com­mer­cial cus­tomers world­wide. Please vis­it www.northropgrumman.com for more information.

CONTACT: Brooks McK­in­ney, APR
(310) 331‑6610 office
(310) 864‑3785 mobile
brooks.mckinney@ngc.com

Team GlobDef

Seit 2001 ist GlobalDefence.net im Internet unterwegs, um mit eigenen Analysen, interessanten Kooperationen und umfassenden Informationen für einen spannenden Überblick der Weltlage zu sorgen. GlobalDefence.net war dabei die erste deutschsprachige Internetseite, die mit dem Schwerpunkt Sicherheitspolitik außerhalb von Hochschulen oder Instituten aufgetreten ist.

Alle Beiträge ansehen von Team GlobDef →