After the first successful flight of the Navy’s newest unmanned reconnaissance and strike aircraft recently, the sea service is already preparing for an intensive test and evaluation period, culminating in the plane’s full integration into Navy carrier operations, according to program officials.
Members of the Navy’s Unmanned Combat Air System Program Office (PMA-268), as well as defense aviation firm Northrop Grumman [NOC], oversaw the first flight of the X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System-Demonstration (UCAS-D) aircraft.
The 29-minute flight at Edwards AFB, Calif., tested the aircraft’s basic aerodynamic properties, such as speed and altitude envelopes, as well as the various avionics software and subsystems on board the demonstrator, Janis Pamiljans, UCAS-D program manager for Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems, said in a Feb. 5 briefing. Northrop Grumman is the prime contractor on the UCAS-D effort.
The aircraft’s performance “surpassed what we wanted to achieve,” Pamiljans said, adding that the program was on track for a live carrier landing demonstration of the plane in 2013. To that end, the preliminary feedback from the flight test was “rock solid,” matching up with pre-test modeling results by program officials, Capt. Jaime Engdahl, UCAS-D program manager at PMA-268, said during the same briefing.
Flight testing had been originally scheduled months earlier, but difficult weather conditions, combined with a handful of last-minute refinements to the platform’s subsystems, pushed the flight to the right, Rear Adm. Matthew Klunder, director of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities in the Navy’s information dominance shop (N2/N6), said during an Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International conference in Washington last week.
The UCAS-D, as envisioned by Navy planners, will be a unmanned, carrier-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft with the ability to carry out precision strike operations.
Aside from ISR and strike capabilities, the demonstrator also proved its low observability “relevance,” during the test flight, Engdahl said. Noting that low observability capability was not a requirement for the UCAS demonstrator, the now-proven swept-wing design and associated “aeroshape” factors associated with the aircraft indicated the platform would be capable of maintaining a low observability capability down the road, he noted.
Exploring the unmanned vehicle’s stealth potential is only one of one of many issues program officials plan to delve into between now and 2013, Engdhal said.
With first flight now complete, UCAS-D team members with the Navy and Northrop Grumman plan to begin ground-based “flight to touchdown” tests under carrier scenarios on the UCAS-D software systems beginning in spring of this year.
After that, program officials plan to move the aircraft from Edwards AFB to Naval Air Station-Patuxent River, Md., for further “carrier sustainability” tests and related support work before the proposed 2013 flight test at sea, according to Engdhal.
UCAS-D officials are also planning to begin work on a second prototype of the unmanned aircraft, set to begin this summer. The UCAS-D “Air Vehicle Two” will be designed to the same specifications as the first aircraft that was tested over the weekend, but will include an aerial refueling capability, Pamiljans said.
The second prototype will be the “primary workhorse” for testing and demonstrating air-to-air refueling for the UCAS-D system. The aircraft will utilize a boom-and-drogue system and will look to carry a maximum 2,000 pounds fuel load, he added.
While the design specifics on the refueling system are still in flux, program officials are confident that the base design tested last week will provide a solid foundation for the second aircraft, Pamiljans said, adding the first UCAS-D “can track and trail [a refueling boom] very effectively.”
Company officials hope to get on contract with Naval Air Systems Command for the second UCAS demonstrator sometime in 2014, he added.