ROBOTIC BOMBER MAKES SUCCESSFUL FIRST FLIGHT.

Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE - A robotic bomber built by Boeing as the first unmanned aircraft designed for combat made a successful first flight, Air Force and Boeing officials said Thursday.

Aimed at creating a computer-guided attack plane that would hunt enemy anti-aircraft missiles, radar and guns, the blunt-nosed X-45A took off at 7:26 a.m. Wednesday and flew for 14 minutes at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base.

``The vehicle was rock-solid all the way through,'' said Air Force Col. Michael Leahy, the X-45A Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle program manager for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

During the Edwards flight, the X-45A reached about 200 mph and an altitude of 7,500 feet. The aircraft flew itself on a preprogrammed mission with only occasional control inputs made from a ground station to adjust speeds, officials said.

The Defense Department is developing unmanned combat air vehicles, or UCAVs, with the goal of using them to find and destroy enemy air defenses. The UCAVs can fly autonomously using preprogrammed mission plans, but ground controllers can interact and change the aircraft's mission planning in flight.

``UCAVs will hunt in packs, looking for air defense systems,'' Leahy said.

The X-45A is the latest in unmanned aircraft developed for the U.S. military.

Others include the Global Hawk reconnaissance plane, which is also being tested at Edwards and has seen use in Afghanistan, and the Predator, a tiny reconnaissance jet that the CIA equipped with anti-tank missiles for attacking convoys and other targets in Afghanistan.

The X-45A is about 26 feet long and has a wingspan of about 33 feet - about the same wingspan as an F-16 fighter but little more than half the length. It is designed to fly up to about 35,000 feet and 600 mph.

The UCAV is being developed by the Boeing Phantom Works in St. Louis under a $131 million agreement with DARPA, the same agency that spearheaded the F-117A stealth fighter program, and the Air Force. Boeing is contributing $21 million toward the effort.

Program officials say they expect to fly the X-45A every two to three weeks during the flight test program. Later this summer, a second X-45 will join the program, leading to the start of multiple-aircraft flight-test demonstrations next year.

Program officials want to be able to demonstrate a coordinated attack, using inert weapons, against a target by the two aircraft.

Work is under way on an X-45B, which is expected to be larger and more capable than the X-45A. It will lay the foundation for an initial operational system toward the end of this decade, officials said.

The X-45 concept calls for the airplane to be designed so that it can be disassembled and placed in a small container for storage up to 10 years. The airplane can be reassembled in one hour.

Up to six UCAVs could be carried inside a C-17 cargo aircraft.

In addition to the DARPA/Air Force UCAV, Boeing is developing a concept for the DARPA/U.S. Navy UCAV-N program. Boeing envisions a significant amount of subsystem and software commonality between the two programs, an arrangement that could reduce cost and risk associated with both efforts.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) The Boeing-built X-45A prototype, an unmanned programmable combat aircraft, takes to the skies over Edwards Air Force Base on Wednesday.

(2 -- ran in Business section only) An artist's rendering shows a Boeing- built X45-A prototype. The bomber made a successful first flight on Wednesday.