DailyDirt: Weapons In The Sky

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Tue, May 21st 2013 5:00pm — Joyce Hung

Completely autonomous drones that can decide who or what to strike are still many years away from becoming a reality, but the military has already developed various unmanned aircraft that it's been using primarily for gathering intelligence (rather than for attacking targets). Here are a few more examples of some of the high-tech flying weapons that exist today.

The $1.8 billion prototype Unmanned Combat Air System demonstrator was recently launched into the air from a catapult. This marked the first-ever catapult launch of a drone from the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. [url]
The Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, the most advanced stealth fighter jet in history, seems to have a problem with suffocating its pilots during normal flight. Since 2008, pilots would frequently and inexplicably suffer from what appeared to hypoxia -- in one case, a pilot hit a tree while landing and didn't even realize it. The cause of the problem was only recently identified as being due to a faulty valve on the pilots' life-support vest. You'd think that after spending almost $80 billion on these planes, it wouldn't have taken them almost five years to figure this out. [url]
After 16 years and billions of dollars, the "Airborne Laser" project -- a 747 jumbo-jet equipped with a powerful laser that can shoot missiles out of the sky -- has finally been scrapped. Cost prohibitive and impractical, the Airborne Laser would likely have cost $92,000/hour to fly if it had worked. [url]

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Filed Under: autonomous, aviation, drones, f-22, lasers, pilots, planes, prototype aircraft, weapons

9 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 21 May 2013 @ 5:18pm

France..
The French are going to buy drones from the US or Israel to "modernize" their airborne capabilities....

There must be other countries making drones now....
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Anonymous Coward, 21 May 2013 @ 5:26pm

Out of Sight, Out of Mind
Interactive Pakistan Murders Using Drones: http://drones.pitchinteractive.com/
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Anonymous Coward, 21 May 2013 @ 6:53pm

F-22
The reason it takes 5 years to figure out is that the issue was the life support vest itself and not the aircraft. Does the life support vest being used support the turn on a at dime Mach speed handling the F22 is capable of?
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Baldaur Regis (profile), 21 May 2013 @ 8:55pm

Cost prohibitive and impractical, the Airborne Laser would likely have cost $92,000/hour to fly if it had worked.
Pfft. $92,000 is what, three toilet seats?
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Wally (profile), 21 May 2013 @ 9:52pm

Re:
How about the cost of the vats full of chemicals used to create the laser...all 500 gallons of it...
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Pixelation, 21 May 2013 @ 10:32pm

Why put a laser on a 747 when we have so many perfectly good sharks?
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JackOfShadows (profile), 22 May 2013 @ 12:34am

Actually...
The US Navy's UCAS X-47D also successfully accomplished a touch-and-go on the USS George H. W. Bush . I have no word on whether it did the T&G on its own or used the carriers built-in ACLS (Automated Carrier Landing System. [ACLS automagically lands the plane but pilots, being control freaks, loathe it.] Standing-room only, aircraft on deck, both of which were surprising. Usually we don't allow audiences, then again, seems like it's doing extremely well.
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Anonymous Coward, 22 May 2013 @ 6:37am

Re:
According to federal agencies that track such things, it is about 1/2 the cost per hour associated with AF One, POTUS' puddle-jumper.
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Anonymous Coward, 22 May 2013 @ 8:44am

Re: Actually...
X-47 only has its own control, as directed by an operator. Landings (and T&G's) are completely automatic, controlled by the onboard computer.

I can also understand why Naval Aviators are hesitant to use the automated system. I personally think that the one who tested the auto-landing system for the UCAS-D has balls of steel to ride an F-18 onto the deck with his hands off the stick.
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