Nouveautés

Northrop Grumman exposes two new UAVs

The inadvertent revealing of two new aircraft design concepts offers proof Northrop Grumman is plotting an aggressive new push deeper into the UAV market.

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These images of MQ-X and MUVR appeared on a 10-month-old presentation by a Northrop executive to aerospace suppliers in California. The briefing is [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien].

The designs show that Northrop is reaching into its past even as it looks to the future of UAV technology. The MQ-X aircraft's nose and fuselage bears an at least passing resemblance to the Global Hawk family, although the wings and tail are designed for a medium-altitude, multi-purpose mission.

MUVR, meanwhile, borrows the fan-in-wing concept for vertical takeoff thrust that was pioneered by the short-lived Ryan XV-5 Vertiplane (see video below). Northrop actually first revealed a blurry image of MUVR at the 2009 Paris Air Show, but this is the first clear image of the aircraft design.
Both concepts are proof that Northrop's 18-month-old advanced technologies shop -- led by former KC-X executive Paul Meyer (also, a former Skunk Works employee -- has been busy.

Skunk Works unveils medium-altitude surprise

Lockheed Martin has unveiled a concept for a new unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that appears aimed at the emerging market for a medium-altitude surveillance aircraft with several days of endurance.

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A diagram on the exhibit booth yesterday identifies the aircraft by the acronym "MPLE", but does not elaborate. The photo shows the aircraft flying at what appears to be medium altitude over a desert landscape. The turreted sensor appears to be hanging from beneath the nose. The high-aspect ratio wings are bent upwards at the tips for a dihedral angle.

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Lockheed's new MAPL design appears reminiscent of the twin-boomed P-38 Lightning, except with a high-aspect ratio for long-endurance flight at slow speed. The P-38 was designed by Clarence L. "Kelly" Johnson several years before he founded the Skunk Works organization, which produced the MAPL concept.

ONR Hones Carrier Landings

The U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR) is making sea-based aviation a funding priority and, with unmanned combat and rotorcraft looking to enter the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps fleet alongside planned Joint Strike Fighters, researchers are touting the potential for dramatic effects on the basic nature of naval aircraft design.

The latest effort unveiled is new flight-control software meant to help aircraft “stick” carrier landings more cleanly. It could lead to major aircraft redesigns that would save money, reduce wear and tear on future aircraft and improve overall performance.

“The precision that we can bring to carrier landings in the future will be substantial,” says Michael Deitchman, deputy chief of naval research for naval air warfare and weapons.

A new algorithm embedded in the flight-control software augments the landing approach, the ONR says. Coupled with an experimental shipboard light system called a Bedford Array and accompanying cockpit head-up display (HUD) symbols, the software ties the movement of the pilot’s control stick directly to the aircraft’s flight path. Instead of constantly adjusting the aircraft’s trajectory indirectly through attitude changes, the pilot maneuvers the aircraft to project a dotted green line in the HUD over a target light shining in the landing area.

“The flight-control algorithm has the potential to alter the next 50 years of how pilots land on carrier decks,” Deitchman says.

“It is almost like a video game,” says James “Buddy” Denham, the senior engineer who has been leading research and development efforts at Naval Air Systems Command. “You’re tracking a shipboard stabilized visual target with a flight-path reference, and the airplane knows what it needs to do to stay there.”

Navy and Marine aviators conducting carrier landings today line up with a moving flight deck in a complicated process. Pilots must constantly adjust their speed and manipulate the aircraft’s flight-control surfaces—ailerons, rudders and elevators—to maintain the proper glide path and alignment to the flight deck for an arrested landing. Throughout their approach, pilots eye a set of lights on the left side of the ship to see whether they are coming in too high or low.

While the new technology certainly would improve carrier-landing safety and efficiency, the new software also could have a long-term effect on life-cycle costs and perhaps even aircraft design, Deitchman says. For example, the new software could help reduce the amount of training pilots need to perform landings, leading to major cost savings.

More precise landings will also help make the whole operation more predictive, he says. That, in turn, could help reduce the load on aircraft and perhaps even change certain aircraft requirements. While reducing aircraft weight could cut maintenance, repair and overhaul costs, the larger impact could be on next-generation aircraft. Depending on the effectiveness of the flight-control software and lessons from its use, designers might rethink flight controls and related equipment. “We could start with a clean sheet of paper on aircraft design,” Deitchman says.

The ONR plans to put the technology into a Northrop Grumman X-47B surrogate for “ride-along” in at-sea evaluations this fiscal year. Researchers intend to start flight tests in fiscal 2015.