A sophisticated drone winging over California while data-linked with a control station far away in Maryland has just laid the foundation for the US Navy’s future carrier air wings. It’s about time.
Navy leaders have said they want to transform the US fleet’s nine carrier air wings, which embark on the fleet’s 11 nuclear-powered supercarriers. Today there are no drones among the 60 or 70 aircraft – fighters, electronic-warfare planes, radar planes and helicopters – that normally populate a carrier air wing.
The goal is for pilotless planes to eventually make up nearly two-thirds of each wing.
The imperative is obvious. In general, an unmanned plane can fly farther than a manned plane can, and can fight without exposing a human pilot to danger. Drones might be the best way to address the extreme distances that would define any future war in the Pacific region.
Despite this, the tradition-bound Navy has moved slowly to integrate drones with its air wings. The US Air Force has been operating large, armed, fixed-wing drones since the early 2000s: propeller-driven Predators and Reapers and, soon, jet-propelled Collaborative Combat Aircraft “loyal wingmen”.
By contrast, the Navy still doesn’t have an armed, fixed-wing drone – despite experiments dating back 20 years. Tests with the X-47B “Salty Dog” prototype proved that an unmanned jet with a fully stealthy design – that is, one without rudders – can land on a carrier, but the USN has resisted combatant drones. Instead the fleet’s first carrier drone, the MQ-25 Stingray, will be employed strictly as an aerial tanker when it first goes to sea in the coming few years. Its maker Boeing has stated that it could easily be equipped for other missions, however, and the fact that it is unmanned and stealthy might easily make it the real-world first choice for missions into dangerous airspace.
A sophisticated drone winging over California while data-linked with a control station far away in Maryland has just laid the foundation for the US Navy’s future carrier air wings. It’s about time.
Navy leaders have said they want to transform the US fleet’s nine carrier air wings, which embark on the fleet’s 11 nuclear-powered supercarriers. Today there are no drones among the 60 or 70 aircraft – fighters, electronic-warfare planes, radar planes and helicopters – that normally populate a carrier air wing.
The goal is for pilotless planes to eventually make up nearly two-thirds of each wing.
The imperative is obvious. In general, an unmanned plane can fly farther than a manned plane can, and can fight without exposing a human pilot to danger. Drones might be the best way to address the extreme distances that would define any future war in the Pacific region.
Despite this, the tradition-bound Navy has moved slowly to integrate drones with its air wings. The US Air Force has been operating large, armed, fixed-wing drones since the early 2000s: propeller-driven Predators and Reapers and, soon, jet-propelled Collaborative Combat Aircraft “loyal wingmen”.
By contrast, the Navy still doesn’t have an armed, fixed-wing drone – despite experiments dating back 20 years. Tests with the X-47B “Salty Dog” prototype proved that an unmanned jet with a fully stealthy design – that is, one without rudders – can land on a carrier, but the USN has resisted combatant drones. Instead the fleet’s first carrier drone, the MQ-25 Stingray, will be employed strictly as an aerial tanker when it first goes to sea in the coming few years. Its maker Boeing has stated that it could easily be equipped for other missions, however, and the fact that it is unmanned and stealthy might easily make it the real-world first choice for missions into dangerous airspace.