(MENAFN - Asia Times) Aerospace giant Northrop Grumman is wasting no time in this competition.
Just two days after DARPA named it as one of three competitors for the LongShot contract, the company released an image of its concept for an air-launched unmanned aircraft system (UAS), Aviation Week reported .Â
Imagine an unmanned aircraft, speeding ahead of its launch aircraft, that itself can fire multiple air-to-air intercept missiles that can seek out and destroy.
No pilots to risk, just a throw-away UAS, that can potentially avoid enemy radar and return to base unharmed, to be used again.
That s the thing about unmanned systems, they lack the romanticism of the past.
Northrop will combine its skillset in digital engineering with an “extensive knowledge in advanced technology weapons, autonomous systems and strike platforms to increase weapon range and effectiveness,” said Jaime Engdahl, Northrop’s program director for kinetic weapons and emerging capabilities.
However, both countries surrendered before the plan was executed.
Key point: All great powers learn from each other s weaponry. Here is how the Allies copied Nazi V-1 cruise missiles.
Exactly one month after the first of thousands of Nazi V-1 “Buzz Bomb” cruise missiles began raining terror and death on London, a Dakota transport plane landed on July 13, 1944, at Wright-Patterson Field in Ohio bearing a sinister cargo: one ton of V-1 parts recovered from dud missiles.
This first appeared earlier and is being posted due to reader interest.
The Allies had ample warning of the Nazi missile campaign and undertook massive countermeasures to defeat the V-1 threat. But the U.S. Army Air Force also wanted its own V-1s. It ordered concept work on ten different cruise missiles dubbed the JB (Jet Bomb) 1 through 10.
The U.S. Reverse Engineered Hitler s Buzz Bomb - And Used It On Japan
The U.S. Army Air Force also wanted its own V-1s. It ordered concept work on ten different cruise missiles dubbed the JB (Jet Bomb) 1 through 10.
Here s What You Need To Remember: The Wunderwaffe had been a strategic liability for the Germans, who shoveled resources into increasingly ludicrous weapons that could have been better used elsewhere. But it was a boon for the Allies, who piggybacked on captured German weapons and quickly reverse-engineered them.
Exactly one month after the first of thousands of Nazi V-1 “Buzz Bomb” cruise missiles began raining terror and death on London, a Dakota transport plane landed on July 13, 1944, at Wright-Patterson Field in Ohio bearing a sinister cargo: one ton of V-1 parts recovered from dud missiles.