{"id":2034,"date":"2015-04-24T18:25:15","date_gmt":"2015-04-24T18:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/box5917.temp.domains\/~iriacom\/\/news\/?p=2034"},"modified":"2015-04-24T18:25:15","modified_gmt":"2015-04-24T18:25:15","slug":"us-navys-x-47b-completes-first-ever-aerial-refueling-of-drone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/us-navys-x-47b-completes-first-ever-aerial-refueling-of-drone\/","title":{"rendered":"US Navy’s X-47B completes first-ever aerial refueling of drone"},"content":{"rendered":"

US Navy conducts historic first ever UAV aerial refueling<\/strong><\/p>\n

The US Navy\u2019s unmanned X-47B aircraft became the first drone to demonstrate aerial refueling capabilities earlier this week when it successfully plugged its in-flight refueling (IFR) probe into the hose of an Omega Air tanker off the coast of Maryland.<\/p>\n

According to media reports, one of the two Northrop Grumman-made unmanned carrier air vehicles (UCAS-D) in the X-47B program paired with an Omega Air KC-707 air tanker and successfully demonstrated aerial refueling capabilities for the first time.<\/p>\n

US Navy launched and landed the X-47B in rapid succession with an F\/A-18 fighter jet as part of a series of joint manned and unmanned flight tests aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt in August of last year off the coast of Norfolk, Va., service officials said.<\/p>\n

After an eight minute flight, the X-47B executed an arrested landing, folded its wings and taxied out of the landing area before moving out of the way for an F\/A-18 to land, Navy officials said.<\/p>\n

Navy engineers worked on some slight modifications to the X-47B aircraft in order to allow it to both land and integrate in rapid succession with fixed-wing fighter jets.<\/p>\n

The refueling of the X-47B happens as the Pentagon\u2019s ongoing review of the Navy\u2019s next-generation carrier-launched unmanned drone works to make sure the new platform is well-suited to operate in a joint combat environment \u2013 and prominent members of Congress continue to push for a stealthy, long-endurance, penetrating strike capability.<\/p>\n

\"X-47B<\/a>

X-47B flies over NAS Patuxent River, Md. in August 2012. Photo: US Navy<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

An ongoing Pentagon intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, or ISR, review is currently exploring the range of desired attributes for the Navy\u2019s Unmanned Carrier Launched Aircraft Surveillance and Strike system, or UCLASS.<\/p>\n

The X-47B carrier-launched drone is a demonstrator platform designed to inform the development of UCLASS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US Navy conducts historic first ever UAV aerial refueling The US Navy\u2019s unmanned X-47B aircraft became the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[115,1,125],"tags":[85,6,43,5,90,205,113,7],"class_list":["post-2034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-americas","category-news","category-united-states","tag-airline","tag-defense","tag-drone","tag-military","tag-navy","tag-pentagon","tag-security","tag-u-s"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/x-47b-fueling.jpg?fit=690%2C376&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7jJWb-wO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2034"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2041,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2034\/revisions\/2041"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}