FLYING SOLO UNMANNED CRAFT PASSES CRUCIAL FLIGHT TESTS.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. - Two unmanned aircraft Unmanned Aircraft (UA) is a term used in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) definition of Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS). UA refers to the aircraft portion of the system required to operate it, also known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. that could lead to creation of robot bombers completed two important flights last week at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center The Dryden Flight Research Center (DFRC), located inside Edwards Air Force Base, is an aeronautical research center operated by NASA. On March 26, 1976 it was named in honor of the late Hugh L. , Boeing said. The X-45 tests on March 11 and 14 were the first of the final ``build'' of new software, flying to the aircraft's maximum demonstration envelope of about 530 mph and 35,000 feet. The craft also opened and closed the weapons bay and transmitted a stored synthetic aperture radar Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) Radar, airborne or satellite-borne, that uses special signal processing to produce high-resolution images of the surface of the Earth (or another object) while traversing a considerable flight path. image to an operator on the ground. The information gathered from the flights will allow the team to proceed with upcoming tests of the aircraft's ability to drop a dummy bomb, and also to fly in coordination with other aircraft, Boeing said. ``These flights went extremely well,'' said Darryl Davis, X-45 program manager, in Boeing's announcement. ``Not only did we gather critical data enabling future milestones, the aircraft demonstrated its ability to interoperate See interoperable. with manned aircraft. During the test, a T-38 pilot declared an in-flight emergency when our aircraft was on final approach with the gear down. Our team successfully sent the X-45 around the pattern, allowing the other aircraft to land uneventfully.'' The X-45 program is a joint effort by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), U.S. government agency administered by the Department of Defense (see Defense, United States Department of). , the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy and Boeing. It is intended to demonstrate the technical feasibility, military usefulness and operational value of an unmanned aircraft for attacking targets on the ground. The two X-45A aircraft are currently being tested. The first flight for a larger X-45C will be in mid-2006. CAPTION(S): photo Photo: (color) An artist's illustration shows Boeing's X-45; the successful development of the craft could lead to the creation of robot bombers. Boeing |
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