Robot X-47B stealth bomber test flight

[eppur_se_muova]

Source: BBC

By Dan Whitworth
Newsbeat technology reporter

Military chiefs in America say a new, unmanned stealth bomber has carried out its first test flight.

The X-47B jet is being designed by weapons manufacturer Northrop Grumman for the US Navy.

It was in the air for 29 minutes during its maiden flight and reached an altitude of 5,000 feet.

Officials say it will help form part of a new generation of unmanned drones and works like a smaller version of the B-2 Stealth Bomber.


Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/12381538

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Great, another flying Batmobile to inflict collateral damage while remaining invisible to radar -- and thus deniable. I'm sure it's worth the money.

[DJ13]

1. We need an international agreement that robotic vehicles cant be above a certain size

I want the world depicted in the Terminator movies to remain a piece of fiction.

[phantom power]

9. It's the small ones you should worry about

[obxhead]

2. If you didn't see it, it was never there.

Regardless of the carnage on the ground.

[HankyDubs]

3. hey that's great

obviously the military industrial complex is tightening its belt just like everyone else.

[FLPanhandle]

4. Pilots will be a thing of the past one day

I'm not boarding the first remote piloted commercial aircraft.

[laconicsax]

5. You're in luck.

That plane crashed in 1998

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5NXpar4Ouw

Airbus blamed the crash of its fully automated plane on pilot error and denied that the automation system was flawed in any way.

[AngryAmish]

14. 1. That crash was from 1998

2. It was during an airshow with a low speed fly-by.

3. It was a fly-by-wire plane, as are all modern planes. I am not sure where you get "fully automated" from. Do you mean there was a glitch in the fly-by-wire system? There were pilots on the plane flying the thing.

4. Better get used to robot planes. They will eventually be safer. The real test will be robot semi-trucks. Those are coming too.

[laconicsax]

18. It was a demonstration of the computer-controlled autopilot.

The computer was flying the plane, the pilot's inputs were overridden, the plane crashed, and Airbus blamed the pilot.

[Plucketeer]

6. Budget cuts???

What? Where? Surely not to these life-serving marvels! :crazy:

[Javaman]

7. Skynet.

I have been overdosing on Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles.

The last episode I watched, they led the audience to believe that the various drone airplanes will be soon part of skynet.

aka hunter/killers (terminator vernacular)

If I took various mind altering drugs in copious amounts, I would now go off on a conspiracy rant, but alas, glen beck corners the market in that horse shit these days. LOL

[Ian David]

8. Finally, a stealth bomber that eats old peoples' medicine for fuel. n/t

[MilesColtrane]

10. Note to the military: Let's keep these things remotely piloted and not start introducing A.I. into..

their control systems....mmkay?

[Xipe Totec]

11. You mean like this one?

[AngryAmish]

15. too late.

[bossy22]

12. so would you rather have something that can easily be shot down by air defenses?

seems like a waste of money to me. I don't think that the purpose of the stealth on this aircraft is so they can cause collateral damage with impunity. I applaud this kind of technology because it will allowo ur carriers to operate farther from shore and therefore farther from danger

[nalnn]

13. I agree

While I do agree that this is a very precise weapon by design and intended to reduce collateral damage, I have to wonder:

Remember Maxim, Nobel? Their most famous inventions were intended (at least Maxim's(machinegun), not sure about Nobel's(TNT)) to reduce the effect of wars. Instead, the opposite happened.

[bossy22]

17. Maxim's hopes for the machine guns

was that it would make war so terrible that it would be avoided- it didnt work. Though i agree that such fear is legitimate, we must also realize that the same thing was said for about nuclear weapons- and no matter how you feel, there hasnt been a true world war since nuclear weapons became a part of world powers's arsenals.

My hopes is that this allows us to keep american soldiers farther from danger

[johnroshan]

16. I don't think we'll ever learn.

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, represents, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."

Dwight D. Eisenhower

:banghead: