Video: Spend Some Quality Time With The X-47B (Carrier Suitability Testing)
Friday, May 17, 2013 at 06:14AM
The video of the X-47B making the first-ever unmanned-aircraft launch from an aircraft carrier a few days was very impressive, but the one above, released a few days ago by Northrop Grumman, is also great because it gives you a much more in-depth look at both the X-47B itself and the rock-solid flying characteristics of this amazing unmanned aircraft. It's a compilation of the work done this Spring conducting the 'carrier suitability testing'.
The video starts with the unfolding of its wings and includes many views of ground handling (including the use of the arm-mounted Control Display Unit [CDU] for deck maneuvering), great views of the control surfaces deflecting, and lots of takeoff and landing sequences (including shore-based catapult) showing how stable the X-47B is in all phases of flight. You also get some great air to air views of this most-unusual flying machine.
And while we are getting used to aircraft that don't have vertical surfaces for stability, stop for a minute and wrap your head around how much is really going on every single second this thing is in the air to create such excellent stability without them.
It's all a very impressive piece of work!
Video screenshot of the very unusual X-47B and its shadow on landing
Reader Comments (2)
Poor deck squidys hand signals to a "blnd robot" airplane, Sad now who gets the shaft when Mr coffee blasts the wrong target?
Computer glitch = instant crash....a thousand inputs a second.
this thingy is so inherently unstable that a micro second of EMS make it explode