Lockheed Martin Plans Unmanned Aircraft

Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "Lockheed Martin's secretive Skunk Works unit--which previously developed U-2 spy plane, the SR-71 supersonic spy plane and the radar-evading F-117 stealth fighter--has big plans for its latest project: drones. Among the concepts under development, according to the Wall Street Journal: 'One drone would be launched from, and retrieved by, submarines; another would fly at nine times the speed of sound. A third, which is off the drawing board but not quite airborne, has wings designed to fold in flight so that it could rapidly turn from slow-speed spy plane to quick-strike bomber.' The WSJ's reporter also is allowed a rare visit to the Skunk Works complex: 'A factory hall was filled with the prototype of a massive helium-filled airship that one day might ferry troops and heavy equipment to distant battlefields faster and more efficiently than ships--no port or airbase needed. The blimp would float just above the ground on four hover pads, meaning that "you could literally pick a farmer's field" to set down in, says program manager Robert Boyd.'"

Comments

UAV

[jimbolauski]

For quite some time UAV have been considered the future of the air force. They are smaller and therefore harder to detect on radar, cheaper to maintain per hour of flight baring crashes, the only thing they can't do right now is carry large payloads and transport vehicles (soon to change). I see very little need for pilots in the future except to fight the UAV that decides to attack us but missiles should get that job done.

Re:UAV

[fitten]

While a pilot's brain is one of the most valuable things in a combat aircraft, the pilot's body is one of the weakest links in the system. Fighters have long been designed (and limited in some cases) to perform within tolerances of what a human can withstand (9G limits and such). Also, various systems such as ejection seats and armor have to be included to protect the pilot. With a UAV, those issues go away. We can design UAVs which have performance envelopes that no human would survive. I agree with the problems about transmission of control signals and the like, but if you can guarantee communications, a UAV should be able to take out an aircraft with a pilot inside it in a dogfight relatively easy just because of maneuverability, not that dogfights would happen that often.

I agree with others in that the most versitile combat UAVs will just be a loitering platform for firing missiles and dropping LGBs. You can have some armed with a bunch of AAMs to protect the ones with the air-to-ground ordnance, as well as have some with both types of ordnance.

funny thing, that

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure that this has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Boeing (their main competition for the F-35 contract) is getting most of the press with its UAV fleet, and manned fighters, under the current Pentagon brass, are going the way of the dodo.

Nothing at all...

The trouble with unmanned vehicles...

[drsmithy]

...Is that they make it easier to go to war. None of those politically inconvenient body bags to bring home.

One step closer to the Terminator..

[Tominva1045]

At this time technology isn't the problem. Question is, what will happen first?

- Errant political leaders misuse technology?

- Politically disgruntled scientist develops AI to run Terminators?

UAV before auto-drive cars

[HangingChad]

I think it's interesting that it would likely be possible to develop an auto-pilot aircraft before we have self-driving cars. That would be a neat X-Prize like contest. Develop an aircraft that a human passenger could program with a destination and the plane delivers them without human assistance. It would need ground monitoring and some way for the human to take over in an emergency, but I bet that could come together faster than autodrive cars.

One of the first UAV experiments was the Snark. So many crashed into the waters off the test facility that they were called Snark Infested Waters. We've come a long way since then.

Death Stats - Iraq and Detroit

[MilSF1]

A quick Google search -

Total Deaths Due to Unnatural Causes 2000 in Detroit (page 55)
955 - 719 Male, 236 Female (Black Non-Hispanic: 540 Male, 178 Female)

Iraq War - March 2003 - Feb. 6
2,452

Don't know if the Detroit numbers have gone up or down, but that was an average of about 80 people a month in Detroit and 70 a month in Iraq. Not making any judgement about anything - just giving numbers. I'm not planning on moving either place any time soon.

Refs:

Detroit Health Department

CNN Casualty Counter

hmm.. space elevators..

[way2trivial]

materials for the space elevator (AS YET UNMADE) are designed to withstand incredible stress..

what if you made your blimp out of the same material, in rigid form, and had an empty blimp.

pop quiz, what lifts better, helium, hydrogen, or vaccuum?