Carrier Environment News

One year ago, Sailors watched an unmanned air vehicle take-off from a nuclear-powered carrier flight deck for the first time in naval aviation history, says Capt. "May 14, 2013 was an extraordinary day for the Navy. The crew from USS George H.W. Bush launched the X-47B that morning off the coast of Virginia. The tailless, autonomous unmanned aircraft took to the skies, while the flight crew on deck celebrated this historic achievement. Our Naval Air Forces Commander Vice Adm. David Buss called it “a watershed event” as he watched from the flight deck. He compared this event to aviation pioneer Eugene Ely’s first-ever landing on the deck of a ship in 1911. In July, the UCAS-D team went back to the ship and took testing one step further.

An X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) demonstrator aircraft recently taxied on flight deck of 'USS Harry S. Truman'. During the test phase, UCAS deck operators used an arm-mounted control display unit (CDU) to remotely control the aircraft. Gerrit Everson, one of the operators who controlled the X-47B, said the UCAS demonstrator displayed excellent integration with Truman's flight deck. "With the CDU, we followed the aircraft director's signals to move the aircraft left or right, over the arresting wire, to and from the catapults and to various spotting positions," said Everson. Lt. Cmdr.