Washington: US Navy pilots sitting comfortably in Maryland recently took a new carrier-based drone control centre out for a spin for the first time, piloting a General Atomics MQ-20 Avenger thousands of miles away using autonomous tech made by Lockheed Martin’s secretive Skunk Works division.
The live-flight test of the Navy’s Unmanned Carrier Aviation Mission Control Station (UMCS), conducted November 5, was done “as part of an effort to advance technology for future Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA),” Naval Aviation Systems Command wrote in a release. Both the Air Force and the Navy are pushing forward with CCA — essentially robotic drone wingmen to fly alongside or ahead of manned aircraft in combat operations — seen as the future of air dominance.
“This was a huge step for unmanned naval aviation,” Navy Air Vehicle Pilot (AVP) Lt Steven Wilster said in the Navy release. “This demo showcased UMCS’s first live control of an unmanned air vehicle, and it was great to be part of history in the making. The team is paving the way for integrating critical unmanned capability across the joint force to combat the high-end threat our warfighters face today and in the future.”
For the test, Navy pilots in Patuxent River, Maryland, controlled the jet-powered MQ-20, which served as a “surrogate” for a future CCA bird, as it sliced through the sky in California, according to the Navy and a Lockheed announcement.
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