Boeing has been awarded an additional $175 million to add a demonstration of autonomous aerial refuelling to its portion of the US Air Force/Navy Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems (J-UCAS) programme. The demonstration will culminate in the in-flight refuelling of the company’s X-45C J-UCAS by a Boeing KC-135 in 2010, writes Graham Warwick.
The $4.5 billion J-UCAS capability demonstration is being restructured after a $1 billion budget cut. The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which hands over leadership of the programme to the US Air Force in October, says the restructuring is not complete, with a permanent structure to be proposed for approval by August.
Source: Flight International
