Second space for a dog perhaps. Don't blame me, I didn't make this one up: cockpit automation will advance so far that every plane will have as its crew a human and a dog. The human's job will be to feed the dog and the dog's job will be to bite the human if they try to do anything.
O RLY? 'Heavily based on?'
It'd be a very small demonstrator, then. Look at cockpit size compared to airframe overall.
Any more information out there about EXPEDITE?
No. Okay, I concede. I'm too much of a fanboy. But these two don't look too dissimilar with that star/rhombus shaped canopy, minus tails and inlets when you weight them against other past concepts, in my opinion. Either way, both suffer from way too much cockpit and not enough real estate left for other components, are small, and single-engined.
Thanks!
They are nothing more than LMSWs Watanabe concept arts used for MDO paper research and SW advertisment I think.
Ah, a study about how to build planes better. Not building better airplanes, how to make the building process better.
NGAD x-planes? Not impossible
I was thinking it may just be what it is - an illustrative art not related to anything particular.
Very possible, but not very fun
I don't think so, the battle as start between Lockheed and Boeing for the big contract..
There's been plenty of live demonstrations of autonomous aircraft taking task based commands
I haven't seen one, but most of the folks here are better plugged in than I am to hear about or find an open source CONOPS.
I know the Army has been doing MUMT with Apache Es and Gray Eagles, I don't know if that has been in combat or what.
The Army MUMT has shown that at least Predator level drones need too much operator input for one person to both fly a plane and fly the drone.
They won't all work in concert from take-off to landing. Some will meet at way points. Munitions can also be launched from over the horizon from one node, targeting directed by a second node, all managed by piloted aircraft. Line of sight from the piloted aircraft to the targeting node or munition is all that's required.
That's harder to do over the Pacific. Only so many places to launch from, so it's quite possible that the CCAs are going to fly with the manned plane from launch to recovery.
If you want a human to help the automation, then why do they need to be in an tacitcal aeroplane vs having many people sitting comfortably in a big airliner or on the ground?
Simpler communication paths and shorter comms lag.
Why are those an issue for something sat 200-400nm back when it's not for Reaper Ops the other side of the world? And this is for something more automated than a remotely piloted system like Reaper
Because Reapers are not flying in/into denied airspace like the NGAD and CCAs will be, so you don't care about a 3sec comms delay.
Because having a crew of 3+ means a much bigger aircraft, barring doing something weird like the EA-6B Prowler (5000lbs heavier than the A-6E). The E-11A BACN comms router has a crew of at least 4 and is a 100klb MTOW aircraft. Doing that in an NGAD compliant airframe is likely to make a 120klb aircraft.
"stuck launching from the same bases as manned aircraft because there's no US-controlled or US-friendly airfield closer"
defensescoop.com
That doesn't require they take off at the same time.They can also take off from a multitude of locations and meet at a suitable waypoint enroute. Neither requires satellite communications to achieve.
Yes, the CCAs may be launching from a physically separate base from the manned aircraft. Depending on where and how the control handoff occurs, they may be able to meet up en route.
It's a good job that our crewed aircraft aren't also critically dependent on those same communication links. Oh wait...
