Service survives J-UCAS cancellation with funding allocation for carrier trials
US efforts to develop unmanned combat aircraft are taking yet another different direction, with the Department of Defense’s decision to cancel the Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems (J-UCAS) programme. The US Navy will instead be funded to conduct an unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) carrier suitability demonstration, while the US Air Force may take J-UCAS technology into its new long-range strike programme.
UCAV development started as a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and USAF effort, then morphed into a joint air force/navy programme led first by DARPA, then by the USAF. Along the way, the budget for the technology demonstration and operational assessment was cut by over $1 billion and the USN now looks to have been given the lead.
The DoD’s fiscal year 2007 budget request zeros air force and navy funding for J-UCAS, but adds $239 million to the navy’s budget for a UCAV carrier-suitability demonstration.
“I am not seeing an air force programme element. It looks like a navy issue going forward,” says J-UCAS programme director USN Capt Ralph Alderson, who expects UK participation in the UCAV effort “will continue”.
Boeing is under contract to build three X-45C J-UCAS demonstrators, and Northrop Grumman two X-47Bs, but the USAF has decided neither vehicle is capable of providing a long-range strike capability by 2018. An analysis of alternatives is planned and development is to begin in 2008-10 (Flight International, 7-13 February). “We have not had a discussion with the air force on long-range strike,” Alderson says.
Only the X-47B will be capable of landing on a carrier, with the X-45C planned to make simulated landings. However, Alderson says he will “not make a categorical statement about X-47 versus X-45 for the carrier demonstration”.
The first X-45C is scheduled for roll-out soon, with the X-47B to follow several months later. Neither will fly before the $310 million in J-UCAS funding remaining for FY06 runs out.
GRAHAM WARWICK / WASHINGTON DC
Source: Flight International
