Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert told a gathering Thursday that a couple unsuccessful attempts to land the unmanned X-47Bs on an aircraft carrier this month should not dampen enthusiasm for the concept.
The Navy made history on July 10 when an X-47B landed twice on the USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77), the first time an unmanned aerial vehicle touched down on a carrier deck, snagged the arresting wire and came to a stop. A third attempt that day was aborted after one of the aircraft’s three navigation systems encountered a glitch.
Greenert pointed out that the X-47B was nevertheless impressive in that it detected the problem and pursued a landing at an alternative site–Wallops Island Air Field in Virginia.
“This thing continued to operate as it was supposed to, and that’s pretty good in that regard,” Greenert told a conference of the National Naval Officers Association at a hotel outside Washington.
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| The X-47B coming to a stop on the USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) July 10. Photo by U.S. Navy |
On Monday the Navy attempted a another carrier landing with the second X-47B but that too was called off after it ran into a “minor test instrumentation issue” and returned to Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md. The Bush returned to port on Tuesday so no additional landing opportunities were possible.
“The minor test instrumentation issue experienced during the July 15 flight did not have any actual impact on operation of the aircraft,” said Jamie Cosgrove, a spokeswoman for Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) . “The test event was canceled because test engineers would not be able to see specific parameters they are looking for during flight.”
The carrier-based testing of the X-47Bs has now come to a close. In May, the Navy also made history with the carrier catapult launch of one of the UAVs. Even though some of the additional tests were called off, the Navy said the successful tests were sufficient to validate the concept and program.
“We accomplished the vast majority of our carrier demonstration objectives during our 11 days at sea aboard CVN-77 in May,” Capt. Jaime Engdahl, the program manager for the X-47B program, said. “The final end-to-end test of the UCAS including multiple arrested landings, flight deck operations, steam catapults, to include hot refueling procedures, was accomplished on July 10.”
There are no plans at this time for additional testing. The aircraft are slated to eventually head to museums to make way for the follow-on program that is meant to produce the UAVs that are planned to eventually become part of operational carrier air wings. That program is known as the Unmanned Carrier Launch Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS).
Northrop Grumman [NOC], which built the X-47Bs for the demonstration program, is among the four firms vying to produce the UCLASS systems, along with Lockheed Martin [LMT], Boeing [BA] and General Atomics. The Navy expects to award that contract by September 2014.