So...
It's basically a remote control heavy bomber to replace the B-52?
The US Navy has completed early test flights on a drone aircraft which sports a wingspan of more than 130 feet (39.9m). Northrop Grumman said that its MQ-4C Triton aircraft has passed a series of nine test runs with the Navy. The trials are designed to test the craft's endurance and manoeuvrability under normal flight …
Given the mission, it would replace the Navy's P-3s along with some manned P-8.
Carrying weapons on such a mission is a very high cost to the loiter capabilities which is the major point of the drone in addition to moving personnel out of the reach of any opposition weaponry. Not to mention the fact that bomb carrying ability is laughable compared to currently available aircraft.
One need not agree with US strategy to accurately assess the reasons, though not agreeing usually renders the individual unable to make a coherent argument much like the fervent fundamentalist 'patriots'.
"Since we retired the Nimrods, the UK has no sea patrol aircraft."
The UK has no defence vision nor strategy, either.
Just as well nobody wants to start a proper war with us, given that we've no aircraft carriers either, and no modern ground attack aircraft. And precious few of almost any type of defence asset you care to name, and virtually none of those are any good for the roles we have needed them to perform in the past twenty plus years.
I wish it were otherwise. Granted it might make things a bit more complicated on this side of the pond, but were mostly in the mess we are because everyone depends on the US to police the world and hating us when we do it.
Unfortunately, I don't think you'll ever get it back. The progressive/socialist/communist segment has so overtaken you I don't see a way back. Sadly, we're not far behind you. And I rather expect that this brief respite from the ravages of absolute tyrannies will return. From 1215 AD to 20xx just seems too short a run for liberty.
>The UK has no defence vision nor strategy, either.
I thought it was to do whatever our masters told us?
So long as we have enough unemployed yoofs to use as cannon fodder in order to show that it is "an international coalition of liberators" (and not an American invasion) we don't need to actually equip them
"Why buy from the US? we're developing our own!"
Mmm. From the same people who brought you Nimrod AEW3 and MRA4. The first cost a billion quid twenty years ago for no working aircraft, the second cost four billion a couple of years back, again for no working aircraft. The MoD is incapable of specifying kit and letting contractors get on and build it, and the contractors are too reluctant to tell the MoD to stop arsing around with the spec every single day. Mix in corrupt and incompetent politicians, the results we see are inevitable.
A further problem is the (military?) obsession with trying to have cutting edge kit that causes vast cost escalation, and then results in limited purchases and excessive asset lives, so that the crews are often younger than the kit they are operating.
How long are they expecting her to be able to fly for once tests are finished? The old Predator has an endurance of 24hrs, makes 9.4 from a new system sound pretty feeble. I presume the improved ceiling height would make sea patrols more productive as they can have eyes on a larger area at once.
..starting my career as a bright-eyed idealistic graduate trainee who liked flying radio-controlled aircraft and fiddling with early computers. And applying for a civil service position at Farnborough, because I wanted to work on unmanned drones, which I thought would be the coming thing.
That was back in the late 1970s. And now that I am at the end of my career, people are just starting to use them. That'll teach me to read too much Dan Dare in the 1950s..
What's the point of a 40-meter-wingspan drone with 9 hour airtime? What's it supposed to do?
It doesn't look like a bomber, I can't see any mountings for guns, it's not stealthy, it does have a lot of space for sensors but 9 hours of airtime isn't really sufficient for a flying surveillance platform either. What's the point of it?
The point of it is simple
It is to keep a few Congress Critters employed in Washington making sure that Tax $$$$ are being spent on white elephant projects like this in their electoral areas. This is the 6lb hammer wheras the predator is the Ball Pein.
In Amerika, bigger is always best aint it?