We’ve all read about unmanned spy planes and remotely-piloted bombers. Now, “two U.S. Air Force test pilot school students have designed an autonomous aerial refueling scheme for an unmanned tanker,” Aviation Week reports.
Using two manned planes as surogates, the students linked together the “bank-angle and roll-rate measurements and the relative positions” of the two aircraft.
These inputs manipulated the control surfaces and throttles, automatically allowing the aircraft to hold a series of positions and transitions while flying a standard racetrack course, even when the tanker was in a 30-deg. bank. By the final flights, pilots kept their hands off the controls for nearly 2 hr. In straight-and-level flight, the controller held the receiver within 1.3 ft. of the desired refueling position.
Unmanned planes can already stay in the air for a whole lot longer than aircraft with a pilot in the cockpit. The only endurance limit has been how much fuel the drone can carry. If the student-designed scheme can be made to work consistently, that final barrier could be gone.
What about with a swam of UAVs giving protecton? That wat the tanker can if needed fly closer to where it may be needed without risking pilots. Does the tanker accept Ammex?
I’ve been wondering when we’d here more about this… AFRL has already done some preliminary research looking at KC-135s using booth boom and probe-and-drogue methods. There are still lots of hurdles, but this is something that’s going to happen IMHO– just a matter of when.
Good Evening Folks,
Autonomous mid-air refueling and carrier landing are the last two big hurdles for the UCAV. If this story is even almost true the future is sooner then anyone though.
Again I ask the question why do we need the F-22 or even the F-35?
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
Hmm, now if we can get autonomous cargo aircraft and automate all those annoying E/R-series aircraft, why, we can fire all the pile-its that aren’t Raptor drivers!
I don’t see any point in the Raptor beyond perhaps a wing’s worth for R&D. Supercruise answers no business problem. Get the Raptor’s unit cost down under 80 mill or so and it might be more defensible but at 150+ mill for a one seater that they don’t even want to put hard points on, well, I’d rather get f-15s and 16s wing jobs and avionics upgrades.
For a long time, ucav’s will require manned fighter cap to avoid air to air engagements which they cannot easily fight autonomously. Why not use stealthy ucav’s such as the boeing ucav 45a/c as a tanker as well as for high risk target attack? A single or few manned fighters could provide cap, and the refueling platform could be one of the ucavs, which then RTB’s early. A f-22 or f-35 could fly a very long subsonic high altitide flight with a 10,000 lbs of extra fuel.
Radical & cool, great for those TransPac missions & over the Pole missions alone to have drone Strato tankers to meet incoming Sqdn for fuel.
Nice.
Use a Blended Wing as next AF Tanker & cargo jet alone
The Blended Wing can replace the C5B.
Blended Wing=797.