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First Successful Unmanned Drone Landing On an Aircraft Carrier

Posted by samzenpus on from the let-the-computer-do-it dept.

redletterdave writes "Salty Dog 502 flew from the Patuxent River Naval Station in Maryland to the USS George H.W. Bush operating off the Virginian coast, but unlike other drones, Salty Dog was piloted entirely by computer without a human operator. The unmanned operation is considered one of the most difficult operations due to navigating the air and a moving ship, and many have said it's a major milestone in the development of drone warfare. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus described the event as witnessing the future and compared it to the first manned aircraft landed on a carrier in 1911."

18 of 176 comments (clear)

  1. The claim of first drone landing is incorrect ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    G.W. Bush landed on a carrier years before this.

    1. Re:The claim of first drone landing is incorrect ! by Cryacin · · Score: 5, Informative

      Don't insult the drones. They have a far greater reaching spread of abilities and a much more complicated and adaptable intelligence engine.

      --
      Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
    2. Re:The claim of first drone landing is incorrect ! by argStyopa · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I always love when some random internet wanker posting from his mom's basement posits that a man that:
      a) flew fighter jets for the National Guard (deprecate it all you like, make smarmy comments about his attendance, whatever - nobody doubts that he flew and qualified in fighter jets, which was neither easy nor particularly safe)
      b) Graduated Yale, and earned an MBA from Harvard (it's particularly noteworthy that he's the only president ever with an MBA...if he was a Democrat, that would be widely known)
      c) won an election as Governor of TX over a popular opponent (Ann Richards)
      d) won election to the Presidency of the United States. Won RE-ELECTION (by an even larger margin). ...is an idiot.

      This man has actually accomplished a great deal in his life. Maybe he IS an idiot, but doesn't that make his accomplishments all that more impressive. Particularly compared to you - what have you done? (I mean, aside from generating snarky comments nearly-anonymously on an internet message board? I mean, of course that's pretty impressive alone...)

      Of course, there's practically a Leftist industry of shat-smearing on Republicans (as opposed to Democrats that make 'journalists' legs tingle), so you can't really be blamed. The script has always been "Democrats brilliant, Republicans stoopid" so, if you cheerfully swallow when someone tells you to, that's the impression you're going to have.

      But the sort of self-aggrandizing narcissist fantasyland you exist in to deprecate this man's accomplishments must be...impressive.

      --
      -Styopa
    3. Re:The claim of first drone landing is incorrect ! by tristes_tigres · · Score: 4, Informative

      You are forgetting his biggest achievements:

      - Invaded sovereign nation that did not threaten USA - the supreme war crime under Nurenberg statues. This war resulted in million+ excess deaths of Iraq populac, according to the Johns Hopkins Unuiversity study

      - Established secret torture GULAG

      - Declared habeas corpus void for "terorism" suspects

      - Launched the total survelliance programs that Snowden now revealed

      - Given away trillions of public money to corrupt and bankrupt Wall Street bankers

    4. Re:The claim of first drone landing is incorrect ! by 605dave · · Score: 3, Insightful

      As a internet wanker posting from my own basement I'd say this,

      a) He never flew off of carriers, and joined the National Guard to avoid actual combat service. There is also every indication that he went AWOL during his service to avoid drug testing.
      b) As the son of the family he was in (at that time in American history), getting into those places is not that big of accomplishment.
      c) He beat Ann Richards who was only the Governor of Texas for one term because her opponent completely screwed up his election. Bush was also riding the wave of change in the state that led to the craziness of Tom Delay and the current absurdities going on in our lege.
      d) He didn't win the popular vote in his first election, and won his second election (barely) exploiting terrorism and gay marriage fears.

      And yes I am Democrat, and yes I think W was a terrible president who thoroughly screwed up this country. I do not however think all Republicans are "stoopid". I do think the current crop of leaders such as Boehner and Cantor are not statesman or leaders like Bush Sr, James Baker, or going further back Eisenhower. But the Republican party has been hijacked by extremists, and GWB left our country in economic and foreign policy disasters. So yeah, I think he's an idiot.

      --
      Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a difficult battle. - Plato
  2. Re:just wait... by Dorianny · · Score: 5, Informative

    landed on a perfect clear day. wonder what happens when the seas are rough, the deck is pitching, and MOVLAS is rigged......

    The first manned aircraft landing on a ship was also done on a perfect clear day after several weather driven delays.

  3. Re:a peaceful dream by Cenan · · Score: 3, Funny

    And after that:
    Air Force will realize that it's stupid to have a carrier that's also a boat, build a plane and the prophecy that is Starcraft will come to pass.

    --
    ... whatever ...
  4. guiding system by Dorianny · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The real question in my opinion is what kind of guiding system do the drones use. Flying by radar guidance is something that we have been doing for a long time, surface to air or air to air missiles use it to lock on a stay on target, unfortunately flying with active radar turned on you are putting a bullseye on yourself that makes it trivial for a enemy with any kind of air defenses to easily track it and shoot it down. Flying with visual guidance is considerably harder (by visual guidance I don't mean simply terrain contour matching to figure out its current location like the tomahawk). Most don't appreciate just how fast the human brain is in quickly figuring out and processing relevant information in the insane amount of visual data that enters our retinas every instant. Computers are nowhere near as good yet.

    1. Re:guiding system by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Informative

      Just a guess, but I wouldn't be surprised if it used stereoscopic vision to assess in figuring out the Z-plane and not just the X,Y. From there, it can infer the geometry and angle of approach of the carrier it's about to land on.

      Furthermore, a carrier deck has markings and lights at precisely known locations. Just by tracking any three of these points, plus the GAIL (glide angle indicator light), the vision system should have enough information to nail the landing. This landing is a notable achievement, but I don't think the vision system was the hard part.

  5. Re: just wait... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Similarly, the first human heavier than air flight. That's why aviation has no future whatsoever.

  6. Re:big whoop by Brett+Buck · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Landing on a carrier is much more difficult because the motions of the ship and the disturbances on the airplane are random. In space, the motions of all the objects are highly predictable.

  7. 1.4 Billion and off to retirement by foniksonik · · Score: 3, Informative

    The Salty Dog is one of two X-47B aircraft built by Northrop Grumman to experiment with incorporating drones onto aircraft carriers. It has a 2,000-mile range and can carry two guided bombs, though it is primarly designed for around-the-clock surveillance. The Salty Dog cost $1.4 billion.

    The drones probably won’t see any combat. After a minimum of three landings on a carrier in the next week, they will be retired to flight museums in Florida and Maryland.

    Instead, the Navy’s UCLASS program will design and build drones for aircraft carriers over the next three to six years. These drones will be used for both reconnaissance and strike missions. According to Reuters, they could be valuable as a counter to missiles in China and Iran designed to limit the range of the U.S. Navy.

    They could have proven out the guidance systems with less expensive hardware. I'm sure some portion of those Billions was directly related to the effort but a significant amount was also dumped into the plane itself as labor and not recoverable.

    --
    A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
    1. Re: 1.4 Billion and off to retirement by jxander · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Prototypes are expensive, mate. Cost of progress. You're probably right, we could test the individual systems more cheaply, but lab tests in similar gear will only get you so far. At some point you need to do a full-up test run with the actual platform and all components.

      Honestly, I would suspect that many MANY tests were run just like you suggested, prior to this event, and the combined cost of those tests (and rectifying and problems found) are all rolled up into that Total cost, driving that cost up further.

      --
      This signature is false.
  8. unmanned drone? by etash · · Score: 3, Funny

    wasn't drone enough? is anyone aware of manned drones?

  9. Re:Dumbass title is dumbass by MindCrusher · · Score: 5, Informative

    Maybe because it clearly states WITHOUT A HUMAN OPERATOR.

  10. Re:a peaceful dream by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 3, Informative

    Flying aircraft carriers? It's been done

    --
    If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
  11. Re:big whoop by xQx · · Score: 3, Funny

    Great observation but i still find the calculations involved trivial.

    Really Sheldon?

    Show me.

  12. Re:just wait... by yurtinus · · Score: 3, Informative

    Why? We've been automatically landing planes on ships for decades.

    --
    +1 Disagree