Top Gun for a New Millennium - UAVs at Sea

One of my dad's friends was in the Navy and I was raised up to think that: "If it doesn't have a tailhook, it's not a real airplane." Although, I didn't end up choosing that path (and I abandoned that philosophy,) I have a great deal of respect for Naval aviators. They definitely do some tough flying and have a lot of fun at it.

For better or for worse, it appears that we may all be losing the opportunity to land fast jets on floating postage stamps sooner than we thought. A recent article at Navy.mil notes that the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) will be the carrier used to test a new Naval combat aircraft. For the first time in history, this aircraft will be a full-size combat jet...without a pilot. Specifically, it looks like Grumman's X-47B will be the first UCAV tested on an aircraft carrier.

According to Defense-Update.com, the X-47B's first flight was supposed to happen last year, but got delayed. I'd say that's not uncommon for a government project...no use hoping that the project is fatally flawed and will never happen.

If case you can't tell, I'm not a fan of UAVs. I'll be the first to tell you that they're the way of the future because they simply offer too much utility on paper for the generals/politicians who plan and acquire military hardware. The Navy Times has some more information about the program...apparently designers are advertising 50-hour flights with these aircraft thanks to aerial refueling. It's hard to argue with the ability to keep your aircraft in the air that long.

Unfortunately, as the Navy.mil article mentioned, they're planning on communicating landing instructions to these aircraft with a system that amounts to essentially text messages and having the planes land automatically. While an aircraft carrier presents the most difficult possible environment to teach a UAV to land itself in, I have confidence that the engineers will figure out a way to make it happen. I worry a bit though because with this plane not communicating to manned aircraft on the radio, nobody else will know to watch out for it unless the ship's controllers are very good about communicating on behalf of the UAV. It'll be a huge challenge for the Navy to get used to this and will be a dangerous situation until they can get the process down cold.

I can tell you from numerous personal experiences that an air traffic controller or UAV operator is not properly equipped to integrate UAV traffic with manned aircraft. In most cases, these individuals lack any real aeronautical training required for everyone else to operates an aircraft whether at home or at combat. At the very least, these individuals lack a personal, vested interest in keeping their aircraft from running into others. That directly translates to danger for those of us who still enjoy flying ourselves. This'll be a critical issue for all pilots, but it'll be a special problem for a carrier ops environment with pitching decks, bad weather, and a stack of jets getting low on fuel.

I'm looking forward to seeing how development of the X-47B progresses. I hope the US Navy, and other agencies like the FAA, think about how to integrate these kinds of aircraft safely with the rest of us before the demands for UAVs get too loud.

Picture via [Defense-update.com]