EUROPE’S KILLER DRONES

I’m expect­ing fashionably-​​sleek lit­tle wings and long, tapered mis­siles. The Italians are about to start test­ing a pro­to­type killer drone of their own.
Rome-​​based Alenia Aeronautica is aim­ing “to fly its new Sky-​​X unmanned com­bat aer­ial vehi­cle (UCAV) tech­nol­ogy demon­stra­tor by the end of May,” accord­ing to C4ISR Journal. “The 7-​​meter-​​long demon­stra­tor which has a wingspan of 6 meters, take­off weight of 1,100 kilo­grams and max­i­mum speed of 800 kilo­me­ters per hour will undergo flight tri­als at Swedens Vidsel mil­i­tary test range.“
The $43 mil­lion + drone is a tech­nol­ogy demon­stra­tor, mostly — a test-​​bed to see how many deci­sions the plane can make on its own in midair.
Presumably, Sky-X’s new-​​found smarts will be used to edu­cate the larger, $360 mil­lion, pan-​​European UCAV that’s in the works. France’s Dassault Aviation is team­ing up with Alenia, Saab, and a whole mess of other Continental defense con­trac­tors to build the Neuron killer drone.
In early sketches, the Neuron looks a whole lot like the X-​​47 UCAV that Northrop is devel­op­ing for the U.S. Navy. But the Neuron might wind up being way meaner than its American coun­ter­part. According this web­site — and take this uncon­firmed report with a giant ruck­sack full of salt — “the air­craft may have… the even­tual abil­ity to launch nuclear war­heads.“
Robots with nukes? Tres mal, if you ask me. A pro­to­type Neuron is sup­posed to take off from European run­ways start­ing in 2009.

April 28th, 2005 | Drones | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.