Boeing X-45C Full-Scale Model Revealed

Boeing X-45C

Boeing sure does move fast with there UAV's.

What do you guys think of her?

Hey great, thanks for the link.
Yikes, I have to get used to it. I like the A version better, it needs a paint job.

X-45 A


X-45 C


hmmm...

[edit on 19-7-2004 by Zion Mainframe]

The Boeing X-45C looks awesome I think!

Yeah, I like it but It's for the Air Force not the navy so I wish they would of made it bigger. I mean it only hold 2000 lb. of explosives.

Murcielago
umm no, it IS for the Air Force AND the Navy, quote from the site "The J-UCAS X-45 program is a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency/U.S. Air Force/U.S. Navy/Boeing effort to demonstrate the technical feasibility, military utility and operational value of an unmanned air combat system for both the Air Force and the Navy."

[edit on 19-7-2004 by namehere]

Wow they look awesome do you know how hard they will be to detect on radar and how many G's they can pull this is the ideal weapon of choice for a behind enemy line strike since it has no pilot and i know it would be hard to detect on radar cus it is flat like the B-2 and is very small and only 3 feet deep! but the X-45 C looks futuristic I wouldn't be surprised if some UFO buff reported a couple as UFO's


[edit on 20-7-2004 by WestPoint23]

have you noticed that these aircraft keep looking more and more like what we all think a ufo would look like

Originally posted by namehere
Murcielago
umm no, it IS for the Air Force AND the Navy, quote from the site "The J-UCAS X-45 program is a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency/U.S. Air Force/U.S. Navy/Boeing effort to demonstrate the technical feasibility, military utility and operational value of an unmanned air combat system for both the Air Force and the Navy."

[edit on 19-7-2004 by namehere]

Ya, they say that but if its really for both then why is the navy funding the X-47?

The X-47B (part of the J-UCAS program with the X-45) is also on display at Farnborough this week - check out the cool pic below




J-UCAS Factsheet

Sweeeeeet...Both would look cooler painted black.

hey thnks popeye, that thing look f'in awsome.

Now these look good.

Somehow Northrop Grumman's X-47 looks better ("cooler") to me.

No I think the X-45c looks better than the Northrop Grumman one it looks more aerodynamic and it looks really sleek yeah like someone said these things would look so kool painted black and they would be almost impossible to detect covered with ram.

It'd be a awesome sight to see one flying at low-level over my or your house....hehe.

Looks cool, im off to Fanborough airshow this week. i can see the flight path of the airbase from the Mall carpark i work at.

Today we got overflown by a B1-B with two Eagles in escort.

Ill look out for the x 45 when im there thx for the heads up.

I like them both but they look ALOT alike

WOW...They all look amazing....But I bet any wannabe future fighter pilots must be a bit
Pi**ed Off looking at these.

Originally posted by rustiswordz
Looks cool, im off to Fanborough airshow this week.

COOL! Take plenty of pics!
Snap a few of the Gripen, that plane rules!

Oh btw, an upgraded version of the RQ-4 Global Hawk UAV also made appearance at the Fanborough airshow!: www.air-attack.com...

The UK 'FOAS' project which means Future Offensive Air System, is studying several different options to find a suitable replacement for the Tornado. While these range from B-2-a-like bombers through to ALCM carrying C-17's or A400's and includiing (at one point but little heard of since 2000) a joint BAE-Northrop strike aircraft that looks almost exactly like a two seat version of the YF-23 the front runner appears to be UCAV's, indeed the last I saw of the 'YF-23' like proposal was as a sort of 'control ship' flying in formation with five UCAV's that just happened to look almost exactly like the X-45C pictured on this thread. Now that would be an exciting propspect but *sigh* this is Britain so get ready for the Tornado GR.5 instead.

Originally posted by Murcielago

Originally posted by namehere
Murcielago
umm no, it IS for the Air Force AND the Navy, quote from the site "The J-UCAS X-45 program is a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency/U.S. Air Force/U.S. Navy/Boeing effort to demonstrate the technical feasibility, military utility and operational value of an unmanned air combat system for both the Air Force and the Navy."

[edit on 19-7-2004 by namehere]

Ya, they say that but if its really for both then why is the navy funding the X-47?

The X-45 and X-47 were originally two separate, unrelated programs. The X-45 was being developed by the Air Force under the UCAV program and the X-47 by the Navy under the UCAV-N program. A couple years ago, the two efforts were combined into the J-UCAS program, which stands for Joint Unmanned Combat Air System.

The project is similar to the Joint Strike Fighter effort in that it is not a true head-to-head competition between the two aircraft. It is instead a technology demonstration funded and managed by DARPA to see if unmanned combat aerial vehicles are mature enough for military use.

www.darpa.mil...

Nevertheless, the two contractors (Boeing and Northrop Grumman) both see J-UCAS as a competition and expect that the winner will be bought by both services just like the X-35 was the winner of the JSF contract.

The original X-45A and X-47A were small aircraft designed to demonstrate basic technologies. For example, the X-47 was built purely to test automatic landing systems that could allow an unmanned plane to land on the deck of an aircraft carrier. Once J-UCAS was started, the requirements for the aircraft became far more ambitious. The two planes are now designed to carry 4,500 lb of payload over a range of 2,000 miles. That is why the current X-45C and X-47B concepts are so much bigger and different looking than the original prototypes. Boeing also has two slightly different versions of its plane. The X-45C is the USAF model while the Navy version is called the X-45CN. The two are nearly identical except that the X-45CN has a slightly thicker fuselage to accomodate larger landing gear needed for carrier suitability.

Each concept has two internal bays that can carry five weapons: the Mk-84 and BLU-109 versions of the 2,000 lb JDAM, the 1,000 lb JDAM, the 500 lb JDAM, and the Small Diameter Bomb. The first four can be carried one in each bay while a four-place bomb rack can be carried in each bay for the SDB.

The J-UCAS program is gearing up for a major flight test effort between 2006 and 2009. If successful, a "winner" could be selected around 2010 to build a production UCAV for both the Navy and Air Force.