Successful first flight for Northrop Grumman X-47A

Sea Power, Apr 2003

The X-47A Pegasus unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) development aircraft-built by Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems (NGIS)-has successfully completed its first flight. The X-47A took to the air at the Naval Air Weapons Station in China Lake, Calif., and flew for 12 minutes under autonomous control.

Northrop Grumman officials said that all objectives of the 23 February test flight-low-speed handling qualities, air vehicle performance, navigation performance, and the collection of dispersion data-were met. The Pegasus landed near a predesignated touchdown point to simulate a carrier arrested landing using a shipboard-relative global positioning system as its primary navigation source.

The X-47A was designed and built by Northrop Grumman with its own funds to support the company's naval UCAV (UCAV-N) program for the Navy and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The company's low-cost, rapidly prototyped, tailless Pegasus was designed to demonstrate the ability of a UCAV to launch from and land on an aircraft carrier, and to perform sea-based surveillance, strike, and SEAD (suppression of enemy air defenses) missions.

The Pegasus-powered by a Pratt & Whitney JT15D-5C gas turbine engine that provides 3,200 pounds of thrust-was built with a largely composite airframe that spans 27.8 feet and measures 27.9 feet front to rear. The UCAV is flown by an advanced autonomous flight control system that compensates for its tailless design. The X-47A was designed at the Air Combat Systems (ACS) unit of NGIS in El Segundo, Calif., and built at Scaled Composites in Mojave, Calif.

"The Pegasus program represents our commitment to significantly reduce the risk for our DARPA and Navy customers on the UCAV-N program," said Gary W. Ervin, sector vice president for Air Combat Systems at NGIS. "Regular unmanned flight operations aboard a flight deck at sea have never been attempted, and Pegasus addressed some of those concerns today."

"This success also points to the potential for joint use of the Pegasus design to meet Air Force requirements in the government's emerging Joint UCAV program," Ervin said.