Taranis flies

While short on details, the UK MoD has confirmed that the unmanned Taranis has made its first flight. It's believed that the first flight took place in Australia.

Breaking a long silence about the status of its BAE Systems-led Taranis unmanned combat air system technology demonstrator, the UK Ministry of Defence has revealed that initial flight tests have already taken place.

“Taranis ground tests commenced in 2010 and flight trials took place in 2013,” the MoD confirms, in written evidence to the UK parliament’s defence select committee. Published on 25 October, its submission was to support an inquiry into the current and future use of remotely piloted air systems by the nation’s armed forces and other agencies.

www.flightglobal.com...

reply to post by Zaphod58


Yes Taranis does fly, being its Zeus.

In Celtic mythology Taranis was the god of thunder worshipped essentially in Gaul, Britain and Ireland, but also in the Rhineland and Danube regions, amongst others. Taranis, along with Esus and Toutatis as part of a sacred triad, was mentioned by the Roman poet Lucan in his epic poem Pharsalia as a Celtic deity to whom human sacrificial offerings were made. [1] Taranis was associated, as was the cyclops Brontes ("thunder") in Greek mythology, with the wheel.

So BAE is calling in Thor to bring the bolts and thunder?

Sneakin thru the sky like the great hunter?

Ok Ill stop.
It was fun.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Most likely it would have been at Woomera test range, there was an article not to long ago about it doing testing up there.

reply to post by Stealthbomber


That's where they said it probably flew. They've used the Woomera range for several other projects.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Sorry I didn't read your article before I posted.

Here's a link from April this year where they said it would make it's first maiden flight from Woomera:
mobile.news.com.au...

I was surprised to see that the UK operates over 500 UAV's, I know a large chunk of these are akin to model aircraft but still, I had no idea.

Oh dear, we pilots are fast becoming redundant......

en.wikipedia.org...

I'll have to get back to my flight simulators.....

Apparently there is a drastic shortage of remote UAV pilots which I find surprising in the world of computer gamers....

PDUK

reply to post by PurpleDog UK


Their first problem is they made it a pilot slot, which means an officer slot. That means not many want it, because UAVs aren't sexy enough BBB

Zaphod58
reply to post by PurpleDog UK

 

Their first problem is they made it a pilot slot, which means an officer slot. That means not many want it, because UAVs aren't sexy enough BBB

It's a good point Zeeee...

As the emphasis to UAV's increases then someone without foresight will change that situation ........ I would have thought...?

reply to post by PurpleDog UK


A couple years ago they talked about making it an enlisted slot, and even were putting a class through, and then it just vanished one day.

Stealthbomber
reply to post by Zaphod58

 

Sorry I didn't read your article before I posted.

Here's a link from April this year where they said it would make it's first maiden flight from Woomera:
mobile.news.com.au...

holy crap.... the music, the lighting, the smoke, the atmospherics of the clip, lead you to believe that Darth Vadar himself will be flying this.....however, it looks like a clone of what the US currently has.

reply to post by jimmyx


Dur to the nature of what they are, all the combat UCAV's look pretty much identical. From what I've read the Taranis' USP is supersonic performance and greater autonomy compared to rival types from other nations.

reply to post by waynos


That's one thing that always drives me nuts. You only have so many possible designs for similar missions, but come up with something similar, and it's a clone/copy.

reply to post by Zaphod58


True, how many times do we see that?


Have you seen the publication "The Aeroplane 75 Years Ago"? It's a digital magazine I get on the iPad. I think you would like it. It's basically a week by week reissue of Flights rival magazine from the corresponding week in 1938, Hence the name. It's planned to continue for the duration of WW2. Some of the comments by editor C.G. Grey are amazing, I thought of you a few minutes ago when I read the comment "the four motor Flying Fortress, probably the most useless aeroplane of them all" wonder what he thought 7 years later, lol.

There are accusations of copying in there too that would sound familiar today. The Russian Tupolev SBD medium bomber is simply dismissed as a "copy of the Martin type" and the Polikarpov I-16 is incredibly dismissed as a copy of the Boeing P-26! Fascinating stuff to see the opinions of that time, some of which make uncomfortable reading today, politics wise.

Ya know, Beeblebrox, the Taranis look pretty spiffy! much more so than any predator or g-hawk to date.

There's this Source, which shows that its faster than supersonic.. Do you have any concrete specs by chance? I'm at work and cant view any videos

kingofyo1
Ya know, Beeblebrox, the Taranis look pretty spiffy! much more so than any predator or g-hawk to date.

There's this Source, which shows that its faster than supersonic.. Do you have any concrete specs by chance? I'm at work and cant view any videos

edit on 26-10-2013 by kingofyo1 because: (no reason given)

Faster than supersonic isn't really right, it is a supersonic drone though. You ptobably won't find out concrete top speeds as they're usually classified.

Stealthbomber

kingofyo1
Ya know, Beeblebrox, the Taranis look pretty spiffy! much more so than any predator or g-hawk to date.

There's this Source, which shows that its faster than supersonic.. Do you have any concrete specs by chance? I'm at work and cant view any videos

edit on 26-10-2013 by kingofyo1 because: (no reason given)

Faster than supersonic isn't really right, it is a supersonic drone though. You ptobably won't find out concrete top speeds as they're usually classified.

What do you mean by "Isnt really right"? Confused by that

reply to post by kingofyo1


Because supersonic means faster than sound. Faster than supersonic would be hypersonic, which Taranis isn't. Or at least is extremely unlikely to be

kingofyo1

Stealthbomber

kingofyo1
Ya know, Beeblebrox, the Taranis look pretty spiffy! much more so than any predator or g-hawk to date.

There's this Source, which shows that its faster than supersonic.. Do you have any concrete specs by chance? I'm at work and cant view any videos

edit on 26-10-2013 by kingofyo1 because: (no reason given)

Faster than supersonic isn't really right, it is a supersonic drone though. You ptobably won't find out concrete top speeds as they're usually classified.

What do you mean by "Isnt really right"? Confused by that

The correct terminology would be faster than the speed of sound not faster than supersonic as waynos pointed out faster than supersonic would be hypersonic, this drone isn't a hypersonic aircraft.

Does anybody have a credible aviation journal source for Taranis being supersonic. That really surprises me.

I had thought it was primarily a test bed for the UK indigenous stealth (following on from Replica) and the software required for 'semi autonomy' in flight.