X-47B makes history, lands on deck of the USS George H.W. Bush
The first arrested landing onto an aircraft carrier with Northrop Grumman’s X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) has been conducted by the US Navy. The X-47B, with a 62-foot wingspan and capability of reaching 40,000 feet, is a demonstration aircraft, designed to simulate future sea-based missions for the Navy.
The X-47B, which took off from the Naval Air Station (NAS) at Patuxent River, Md., completed a 35-minute flight, reached 145 knots and landed on the deck of the USS George H.W. Bush off the coast of Virginia. Its flight was controlled almost entirely by computers through GPS coordinates and advanced avionics. The US Navy has been working on integrating unmanned aircraft into its carrier operations for over a decade now. The arrested landing was the final test flight of an eight-month program. The recently conducted test flights will help the Navy to develop parameters for a next-generation variant of the X-47B, as it looks to launch its Unmanned Carrier-Launched Surveillance and Strike program (UCLASS), which it is currently seeking proposals for.
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