Posted on 09/16/2020 12:56:36 PM PDT by RomanSoldier19
Boeing Australia has powered up the engine of the first ‘loyal wingman’ unmanned aerial vehicle it is developing in partnership with the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) ahead of upcoming flight trials.
The milestone, announced on 15 September, follows the completion earlier this year of the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that is serving as the foundation for the global Boeing Airpower Teaming System (ATS).
“This engine run gets us closer toward flying the first aircraft later this year,” Dr Shane Arnott, programme director of the Boeing ATS was quoted as saying. “We’ve been able to select a very light, off-the-shelf jet engine for the unmanned system as a result of the advanced manufacturing technologies applied to the aircraft.” Boeing has not yet disclosed which engine it has chosen for the ATS
(Excerpt) Read more at janes.com ...
What happens when the Chinese hacker breaks in via the uplink?
Are all the circuit boards and chips it uses made in Australia or China?
Are we closing in on pilotless commercial flights?
Any thoughts?
That's nothing new...
Loyal wingman, it throws itself at the hot plane’s less attractive girlfriend.
What is or will be the purpose of this uav?
>>What is or will be the purpose of this uav?<<
Dunno. Modern jetliners do not need pilots for 99.999% of their operations anyway. Pilots manually take off and land because they want to, not because they have to.
If an entire cockpit staff ever became disabled, a la the movies, there is a 3 step process to engage the auto pilot (cigarettes no longer allowed after initiation) which could fly and land the plane with zero problems even in terrible weather and near zero visibility.
All I can tell you is the military pays a LOT of attention to encryption and other IA issues (tampering etc.). Also, these vehicles will be partially autonomous, accepting high-level commands like “attack that target” and then attacking and reforming without further communication.
One interesting idea is line of sight optical comms, those are pretty well impossible to spoof.
Many of the ICs are doubtless made in Taiwan, although it behooves both Australia and the US to encourage native state of the art fabs.
“Are we closing in on pilotless commercial flights?
Any thoughts?”
*************************************************
Not coming anytime soon... at least for PASSENGER commercial flights. Cargo flights? Sooner than passenger flights but, again, not anytime soon.
What is or will be the purpose of this uav?
—
to interdict enemy fighters at a remove; to take out enemy AAD before piloted planes arrive; among many other roles
The US version was cancelled or taken dark - pick one
To sell it to any Govt that will sign a Contract in hopes of taking some of the losses on the 737Max Software mess.
“Cargo flights?”
Not a lot of difference here. They have the same problem as passenger flights. When you fly to an airport like Atlanta, Chicago, or Los Angeles (LAX), there could easily be 300 to 500 aircraft in the airport surveillance radar at any time. Whose going to answer a change need and react to get out of the way or miss something in the command center? Without humans in the seats, any unusual thing that can happen can’t always be programmed in.
rwood
“What is or will be the purpose of this uav?”
My point was that the article should have mentioned its purpose. ;-)
I think, though, that mabarker1 came the closest to the actual purpose. LOL
>>My point was that the article should have mentioned its purpose<<
Point well taken. I learned that in HS JOURNALISM class for goodness’ sake: assume you audience knows NOTHING about the topic at hand.
That would certainly include the purpose of the craft.
But that was how to do actual journalism, not the “be the next Woodward and Bernstien” Pablum they “teach” today. This is not a case of fake news, just bad reporting.
Thank You !!! Cool, did I win a prize.?;)
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