Friday, November 30, 2012

FOXNews.com: Navy catapults unmanned aircraft for first time

FOXNews.com
FOX News Channel - We Report. You Decide. // via fulltextrssfeed.com
Navy catapults unmanned aircraft for first time
Nov 30th 2012, 10:52

The U.S. Navy and Northrop Grumman have conducted the Navy's first catapult launch of an unmanned aircraft on Thursday, marking the first of a series of shore-based catapult-to-flight tests over the next few weeks.

Using the X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) demonstrator, the Navy's UCAS Carrier Demonstration program plans to catapult the aircraft from a ship base, making history, next year.

Mike Mackey, UCAS-D program director for Northrop Grumman, said, "Today's successful launch is another critical milestone in the carrier-stability testing phase of the UCAS-D program."

The test was conducted at a shore-based catapult facility at Naval Air Station in Patuxent River, Md. Northrop Grumman said in a statement following the launch that the X-47B did a test flight over the Chesapeake Bay to simulate what the aircraft will have to do when it lands on a ship.

The test flight also allowed the team to collect navigation data about each of the maneuvers performed. Mackey said, "It also provides another confidence-building step toward our rendezvous with history next year."

A program goal for 2013 is to demonstrate the launch, recovery and air traffic control operations abilities of an X-47B to operate from a Navy aircraft carrier.

The Northrop Grumman Corporation, a leading global security company, is the Navy's main contractor for the UCAS-D program.

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com.

If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions

0 comments:

Post a Comment

 
Great HTML Templates from easytemplates.com.