The U.S. Navy has pulled off what the service's "air boss" called "a watershed event," launching a drone from an aircraft carrier.
The X-47B Unmanned Combat
Air System (UCAS) demonstrator completed a catapult launch from the USS
George H.W. Bush off the coast of Virginia Tuesday morning.
"Today we saw a small,
but significant pixel in the future picture of our Navy as we begin
integration of unmanned systems into arguably the most complex
warfighting environment that exists today: the flight deck of a
nuclear-powered aircraft carrier," the "air boss," Vice Adm. David Buss,
commander of Naval Air Forces, said in a statement.
he drone landed at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, after a 65-minute flight around Chesapeake Bay, the Navy said.
"The flight today
demonstrated that the X-47B is capable of operation from a carrier,
hand-off from one mission control station to another, flight through the
national airspace, and recovery at another location without degradation
in safety or precision," Matt Funk, the lead engineer for the UCAS
program, said in statement.
The next milestone will
be landing the craft back on the carrier as the flight deck pitches in
the open sea, something onboard pilots consider one of the most
difficult things they do. That may come sometime this summer, the Navy
statement said
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