EDWARDS SHOWS UNMANNED CRAFT.Byline: Daily News EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE Edwards Air Force Base, U.S. military installation, 301,000 acres (121,805 hectares), S Calif., NE of Lancaster; est. 1933. It is one of the largest air force bases in the United States and has the world's longest runway. - Edwards Air Force Base played host to aerospace industry officials in conjunction with the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International's Unmanned Systems North America 2004 Symposium in Anaheim. About 500 people were driven in buses from Anaheim to Edwards to inspect remotely-piloted and computer-controlled aircraft - known as ``unmanned aerial vehicles
``This provides an opportunity to see UAVs in action,'' said Maj. Gen. Doug Pearson, Air Force Flight Test Center commander. ``This not only showcases what we're doing now, but what we will be doing in the future.'' Vehicles on display included the Global Hawk, Predator, X-34, X-36, X-45A Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems, or J-UCAS, was the name for the joint U.S. Navy/U.S. Air Force unmanned combat air vehicle procurement project. The two vehicles involved in the project were the Boeing X-45 and Northrop Grumman X-47. and X-47A. The event kicked off with a flight demonstration of the remotely-piloted Predator, which has been used in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere both as a reconnaissance plane and to shoot missiles at vehicles. Other demonstrations included a flyby of the Global Hawk, a computer-controlled long-range reconnaissance jet and a demonstration of solar power use by NASA NASA: see National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA in full National Aeronautics and Space Administration Independent U.S. . Col. Larry Felder, UAV Battlelab commander at Nellis Air Force Base Nellis Air Force Base (IATA: LSV, ICAO: KLSV) is a United States Air Force base, in Clark County, Nevada, on the northeast side of Las Vegas. It is also treated as a census-designated place by the United States Census for statistical purposes, and so specific in Nevada, visited Edwards during the UAV UAV Unmanned Aerial Vehicle UAV Unmanned Air Vehicle UAV Unmanned Aerospace Vehicle UAV Unmanned Airborne Vehicle UAV Uninhabited Air Vehicle UAV Urban Assault Vehicle UAV Unpiloted Aerial Vehicle (less common) symposium to talk about a UAV project in its infancy stages. The project, called Little Weasel, is intended to fit an electronic targeting pod on a UAV. Right now, it's fitted to a small piloted aircraft that closely resembles the intended UAV in size and shape. ``This is an exciting time to be in the business. It's like being in the Army Air Corps in the early 1900s, when soldiers were taking ideas and turning them into reality,'' Felder said. |
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