ABOARD THE USS GEORGE H. W. BUSH–The Navy’s X-47B batwing plane swept down and hit the deck of the aircraft carrier, caught the arresting gear wire and rapidly slowed to a stop.
The picture perfect landing may have looked like something the Navy has been doing for decades: launching and landing planes on aircraft carriers.
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| The X-47B snagging the arresting gear wire. Photo by U.S. Navy |
But the event that took place aboard the USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) about 70 miles off the coast of Virginia on Wednesday was a first, and represents the beginning of a new era in maritime aviation.
The X-47B wasn’t being flown by a pilot. The unmanned aerial vehicle was being flown by sophisticated onboard computers capable of a plane landing on a moving ship–a task considered the most challenging in all of aviation.
“It is not often that you get a chance to see the future, but that’s what we got to do today,” said Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, who flew out to the carrier along with the Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Jonathan Greenert, to witness the historic occasion.
“This is an amazing day for aviation in general and for naval aviation in particular,” Mabus told reporters in the hangar bay below the carrier’s flight deck. Greenert added that it was a “miraculous technological feat.”
Rear Adm. Mat Winter, the program executive officer for unmanned aviation and strike at Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR), called the event a “banner day.”
“The fact of the matter is that you just observed history, history that your great-grandchildren, my great grandchildren, everybody’s great grandchildren are going to be reading in history books.”
The Navy’s has two of the Northrop Grumman [NOC]- built X-47Bs. Development began in 2007 under the Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) demonstration program at a price tag of $1.4 billion. The aircraft, about the size of a manned fighter jet, fly and navigate autonomously through GPS and secure networks and communication links. Humans simply cue them to approach, land or takeoff and the x-planes do the rest on their own.
UCAS is the precursor to what the Navy plans to evolve into an air wing integrated onto aircraft carriers. A separate, follow-on program known as Unmanned Carrier Launched Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) is already underway and the first system is planned to be operational by the end of this decade or in the early 2020s.
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| The X-47B touching down on the USS George H.W. Bush. Photo by U.S. Navy |
Once the X-47B landed on the carrier’s deck Wednesday, it proceeded to the catapult launch area and was shot off the ship. It then circled around and landed again a few minutes later.
A third attempt to land on the carrier was aborted after the X-47B detected a glitch in one of the precision navigation computers and was diverted to Wallops Island Air Field in Virginia as had been planned for such a scenario, and landed safely using built-in redundant navigation computers.
Capt. Jaime Engdahl, the program manager for the UCAS program, said about two minutes before landing the problem was detected. Given the high safety standard for carrier operations a decision was made to send the plane to the alternate landing site as a precaution, he said.
“We saw an issue in one of the precision navigation computers and decided that we had done enough for the day, and then flew the aircraft back to land and landed it there,” Engdahl told reporters on a conference call Thursday.
Northrop Grumman’s UCAS program manager, Carl Johnson, said his team was sifting through the data but was confident the cause was “minor.”
“When we reset the computers everything will be up and running and we’ll have a fully functional airplane,” he said.
Speaking on the same call, Winter said the Navy intends to resume testing on the George H.W. Bush on Monday. “We fully expect to be able to operate either air vehicle one or air vehicle two out to the ship to continue to finalize the objectives for X-47B,” the admiral said.
As the Navy winds down the demonstration phase of the program and transitions to UCLASS, both planes will soon be heading into retirement in museums.