Navy UCLASS to carry 1,000 pounds over 2,000 miles

The U.S. Navy is working on a radar-evading, armed, jet-propelled, highly autonomous drone warplane able to take off of and land on the pitching deck of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier as early as 2018.
Known by the UCLASS the new drone will be the first pilotless warplane with the same bombing abilities as today’s manned jet fighters.
It’ll be stealthy. It’ll carry lots of sensors and ordnance over long distance. It’ll be expensive.
Thanks to an internal Navy document obtained by the U.S. Naval Institute’s news blo, The requirements document lays out what are called “key performance parameters” that the UCLASS drone is supposed to meet.
For starters, UCLASS will be deployed aboard the Navy’s flattops in groups called “orbits.” By Air Force standards, a drone orbit includes three or four aircraft plus the control station and 100 or more human operators. The Navy expects each orbit to cost $150 million, according to the leaked document.
The new killer drone must be able to fly 2,000 miles without in-air refueling in a “lightly contested” environment — that is, against modest enemy defenses — and destroy a target on land or sea using two 500-pound GPS-guided bombs.
By comparison, the Super Hornet can carry 4,000 pounds worth of bombs plus self-defense missiles only 500 miles without refueling, but is able to fight its way through heavily contested air space. The F-35C also carries two tons of weapons plus missiles but can fly 600 miles on internal fuel and through heavy defenses.
In short, the UCLASS will more than triple the striking range of the carrier more cheaply than current planes — although with fewer bombs and with less ability to survive against a determined foe.

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