Technology in the world of flight

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Jags

Jags

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Aug 2, 2006
18,499
Northern IL
With much ado about drones and such, a pretty ground breaking moment has happened recently. The ability for an unmanned drone to land on an aircraft carrier. This is amazing folks. Aircraft carrier landings is probably the single most difficult thing to do (under normal circumstances) that you can do with a plane.

I have spent many days on the flat top of a carrier and have witnessed many things. To land on an always in motion postage stamp that rises and falls, lists from side to side and is in forward motion with unstable air behind it, is a task for a talented pilot. To do this with an unmanned craft is simply amazing.

(broken link removed to http://news.yahoo.com/navy-completes-1st-unmanned-carrier-landing-200130982.html)
 
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The movie.

(broken link removed to http://defensetech.org/2013/07/10/video-x-47b-makes-first-ever-drone-carrier-landing/)
 
"R2-D3 call the ball."

"Beep, screech, beep-beep."
 
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I watched the flicks of the simulated flat top landing at Pax River. The real landing is cool. My neighbor flew two hundred missions off of a carrier. As a civilian Pentagon employee 40 years later he was offered a chance to do carrier landings in a simulator. He crashed into the boat every time. ;lol
 
I'm thinking that the drone doesn't care if it's night or day, eh? Pretty amazing tech.
 
fossil said:
I'm thinking that the drone doesn't care if it's night or day, eh? Pretty amazing tech.
Click to expand...

Absolutely - no VFR for a man-less drone. All IFR. The color of the air has no effect.:cool:

Actually - I am pretty sure that they would be getting a direct feed off of the ships nav to match to the drone. The ACL on F14's did this eons ago and it was quite accurate. I am sure it is even better now. The pitch and yaw of the ship would be emulated by the drone from this feed.

(ACL = Automatic Carrier Landing).
 
Yeah, lots of the pieces of what it takes to do this have been around for a while...as is pretty much always the case with increasingly complex tech. Putting them all together with some new pieces added and getting it all to work is impressive.
 
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