The X-47B Drone Has Landed on a Carrier, And War May Never Be the Same

[QuickZ06]

Help us all.

It's not often that we get to witness aviation history being made, but when we do, it's often awesome. Such is the case with the U.S. Navy's X-47B which just became the first unmanned aircraft to land on an aircraft carrier.

Landing a drone on an aircraft carrier was not a cheap or easy task. The so-called "Salty Dog 502" has been in training to accomplish such a feat for years now, and the program has cost the government over $1.4 billion. It won't spend anymore, because the Navy is retiring its two X-47B's and sending them to Navy museums in Florida and Maryland. The aircraft deserve nothing less than being enshrined. "Your grandchildren and great grandchildren, and mine, will be reading about this historic event in their history books," Rear Admiral Mat Winter told the press ahead of the landing. "This is not trivial."

How untrivial is it? Some of the top brass say that Wednesday's accomplishment is second only to the introduction of naval aircraft way back in 1911. And the thought of robot planes zipping on and off of floating runways is probably just as scary to the people of 2013 as the idea of planes on boats was to the people of 1911.

Nevertheless, Wednesday's landing was just one of many milestones the X-47B has hit in recent years. The Northrop Grumman drone is a big drone with a 62-foot wingspan, though it can fold its wings into a more compact shape. The two aircraft have more or less been in nonstop testing since their first flights in 2011 and made its first "catapult takeoff" from land six months ago. The operation moved to the aircraft carrier earlier this year, and in May, the X-47B made its first catapult takeoff from the deck and made nine touch-and-go landings.

The X-47B was never armed, but the two drones will change warfare as we know it. Just imagine: now the Navy can launch unmanned aerial vehicles that can fly for dozens of hours without refueling from anywhere in the world. Although the test planes will gather dust in a museum, the technology that made the carrier takeoffs and landings possible will be applied to the rest of the drone fleet. The Navy will start accepting proposals for a new carrier-ready drone next month and hope the aircraft will be in service in three to six years.

http://gizmodo.com/the-x-47b-drone-has-landed-on-a-carrier-and-war-may-ne-733010880

We are so doomed. This going to backfire on us very badly.

 

[AngryCanadian]

lol at the comments by the Pro War Crowd

 

[QuickZ06]

lol at the comments by the Pro War Crowd

We will see just how pro war these people are by the time 2020 rolls around.

I saw another video posted on another site, and it surprised me how people from other countries were excited over this technology. Do they not realize we could end up using it on them guess people have forgot just how much we like to go invade other peoples space.

 

[AngryCanadian]

We will see just how pro war these people are by the time 2020 rolls around.

I saw another video posted on another site, and it surprised me how people from other countries were excited over this technology. Do they not realize we could end up using it on them guess people have forgot just how much we like to go invade other peoples space.

The majority of some the users are just trolls. Or paid off shock puppets.

 

[Nobexliberty]

Bayonets were thought to be outdated untill some brits in afghanistan used them for a charge. Aircraft controlled by man will not go away anytime soon.

 

[AngryCanadian]

Some of the comments are made by trolls see the commenting sections is hilarious..

Occupation? You must just another close minded brainwashed idiot who got overwhelmed by the anti-American propaganda. Theres nothing to argue about, it would be like argueing with a brick, though Ive never done that I can only imagine what it would be like

 

[Cap]

The majority of some the users are just trolls. Or paid off shock puppets.

We've got a few on RPFs as well I'm afraid.

 

[Nobexliberty]

We've got a few on RPFs as well I'm afraid.

Who?

 

[Acala]

Aircraft carriers are obsolete for the exact reason that you can land a drone on one. In a real war, they would be gone in the first battle. Any enemy with any serious industrial capacity could slap together thousands of cheap, remotely-guided buzz-bombs and overwhelm ANY phalanx.

 

[69360]

Aircraft carriers are obsolete for the exact reason that you can land a drone on one. In a real war, they would be gone in the first battle. Any enemy with any serious industrial capacity could slap together thousands of cheap, remotely-guided buzz-bombs and overwhelm ANY phalanx.

The US doesn't attack countries that can fight back.

 

[Root]

 

[Acala]

The US doesn't attack countries that can fight back.

True. That's why I said a REAL war. But even a small country could build remote guided buzz bombs or fast boats that would be good enough to swarm a behemoth aircraft carrier.

 

[surf]

not real impressive - I have neighbors that can land remote control aircraft in their swimming pool....

 

[thoughtomator]

Drones will be the military fad-of-the-times until they need to be depended on against a real enemy, at which point they will suffer all sorts of hacking and electronics failures. Wouldn't be surprised if a few of them got hijacked to turn on their controllers, too.

Building a high-tech military with foreign-produced electronics is about as foolish as trying to secure the nation against terrorism with the southern border wide open for anyone to roll across whatever weapons they want to bring - SAMs, chems, nukes...

 

[Warrior_of_Freedom]

Aircraft carriers are obsolete for the exact reason that you can land a drone on one. In a real war, they would be gone in the first battle. Any enemy with any serious industrial capacity could slap together thousands of cheap, remotely-guided buzz-bombs and overwhelm ANY phalanx.

not when your enemy has the technology to shoot things out of the air with laserzrzz

 

[Dr.3D]

That aircraft has to be communicated with in some form in order for it to do what it does. If the enemy were to find the frequencies it uses for that communications and jammed them, it would be useless.

 

[Occam's Banana]

"War may never be the same?" WTF kind of bullshit is this?

War yesterday = killing & maiming people + destroying lots of stuff
War today = killing & maiming people + destroying lots of stuff
War tomorrow = killing & maiming people + destroying lots of stuff

Everything else is just details. "War may never be the same" my ass ...

 

[VIDEODROME]

I'm not sure any of us can even guess how drones work especially if their signal is affected. I would guess they receive communication by satellite. I don't know if it's feasible to jam a signal from space or if it's even just continuous signal. Seems like it might hop frequencies.

I also don't know how these would work during "real war". During real air combat they would probably just hit any Non-Drone target even if they lose the signal.

 

[69360]

True. That's why I said a REAL war. But even a small country could build remote guided buzz bombs or fast boats that would be good enough to swarm a behemoth aircraft carrier.

The factory would be droned first

 

[youngbuck]

Just wait till they have drone carriers full of drones, and from land-based buildings, they can launch and land drones at eight times the rate of current carrier systems. Not good for anybody such forced is projected toward.