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X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstrator (UCAS-D) launches from the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) in 2013. US Navy Photo
After months of deliberation, the name and designation of the Navy’s first carrier unmanned aerial vehicle are now official: MQ-25A Stingray, service officials told USNI News this week. Read More
A Harpoon anti-surface missile is launched from the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Shiloh (CG-67) in 2014. US Navy Photo
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The Navy is creating an offensive anti-surface network that will tie targeting information from satellites, aircraft, ships, submarines and the weapons themselves to form a lethal “kill web” designed to keep pace with the expanding lethal power of potential adversaries, service officials outlined on Tuesday. Read More
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Foreign military sales by the United States are growing because its products are considered well-made and reliable, but it is a complicated area not only involving foreign governments but various departments inside the American government and Congress having to sign off on those agreements. Read More
Northrop Grumman’s X-47B is loaded Monday onboard the USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) for a planned May, 14 2013 catapult launch. US Navy Photo
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Navy wants to continue to tweak what it will call the Stingray — its first carrier-based unmanned aerial vehicle. Read More
An X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) demonstrator sits on an aircraft elevator of the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) on May 6, 2013. US Navy Photo
The Navy wants to change the Pentagon imposed designation of its RAQ-25 carrier-based unmanned aerial tanker with its own nom-de-drone – Stingray. Read More
A MH-60S Knighthawk helicopter, assigned to the Island Knights of Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 25 on Guam in 2015. US Navy Photo
SAN DIEGO – The Pentagon’s Joint Multirole (JMR) investigation into a new generation of helicopters is highlighting the differences between what the Army and Navy need in terms of vertical lift aircraft, Navy and industry said last week. Read More
X-47B conducts its first night flight April 10 over Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md. on April, 10 2014. US Navy Photo
SAN DIEGO — The head of Naval Air Systems Command said the effort to build the Navy’s first unmanned aerial vehicle to operate with the carrier air wing would be a leaner process than what was planned for the Navy’s Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) program. Read More
An artist’s conception of Boeing’s UCLASS offering taken as part of the company’s display at the U.S. Navy League 2015 Sea Air Space Exposition. US Naval Institute Photo
This post has been updated to include additional comments from the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
Naval Air Systems Command is set to release a new draft request for proposal for its unmanned aerial refueling tanker to industry later this year, USNI News has learned. Read More
X-47B taking on fuel from a tanker on April 22, 2015. US Navy Photo
The Navy’s Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) effort is being retooled as primarily a carrier-based unmanned aerial refueling platform — one of several Pentagon directed naval aviation mandates in the service’s Fiscal Year 2017 budget submission. Read More
A surrogate Large Displacement Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (LDUUV) is submerged in the water in preparation for a test to demonstrate the capability of the Navy’s Common Control System (CCS) at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center Keyport in Puget Sound, Wash. in December 2015. US Navy photo.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The director of unmanned warfare systems (OPNAV N99) will keep a particularly close eye on the Common Control System as it continues through development, after a demonstration last month proved that the system that was first tested on an unmanned air vehicle could also control an underwater vehicle, the director said Friday.
