They are taking the fighter out of the fighter jet

Sometime in the next 10 years, military strategists envision using a swarm of such unmanned fighters to carry out the most dangerous elements of combat — knocking out enemy air defenses such as radars and anti-aircraft missiles so that piloted fighters and bombers can strike targets on the ground and in the air. Pentagon officials and defense analysts said the maiden flight of the X-45A represented a ‘‘quantum leap’’ in the development of such aircraft. ‘‘It will transform the way we will fight in the future,’’ said David Lanman, who oversees unmanned aircraft development at Air Force Research Laboratory in Ohio.

Although it wasn’t the first time for an aircraft to fly autonomously, X-45A is the world’s first unmanned attack jet to do so. The X-45A has attracted particular attention since the September 11 terrorists attacks and subsequent military action in Afghanistan. Military operations there highlighted the utility of unmanned aircraft for gathering military intelligence, such as Northrop Grumman Corp’s Global Hawk and remotely controlled General Atomic Aeronautical System Inc’s Predator. They raised interest in development of a new generation of humanless aircrafts that could not only gather intelligence but attack targets.

The success of the flight, which will undergo intense review over the next few weeks, represents a huge boost to Boeing’s efforts to develop unmanned aircraft. Smarting from losing the competition to develop the next generation fighter jet know as the Joint Strike Fighter, Boeing created a new business division to develop unmanned systems. Boeing’s strategy aims to eventually supersede the piloted JSF program, considered the biggest defense contract in history.

‘‘This flight is a wonderful milestone for our UCAV team,’’ said Boeing UCAV manager Rich Alldredge. UCAV stands for unmanned combat air vehicle. The X-45A was designed by Boeing Phantom Work engineers in Seattle and St Louis and assembled in St Louis as part of a $191 million, three-year contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a Pentagon research arm. It uses the latest in composite plastic technology with advanced electronics and powerful computers.

Boeing engineers are currently designing a larger, more capable sister to the X-45A, which would more closely resemble an operational system. That plane is expected to undergo tests in 2005 with the goal of fielding an operational plane by 2008. In the interim, Boeing and the Air Force will test the X-45A every several weeks, flying it higher and faster and testing the command and control systems.

For Wednesday’s flight, the plane flew a simple loop over the Mojave Desert. ‘‘It looked awfully nice,’’ Col Michael Leahy, the Pentagon’s programme manager for the UCAV, said during a media briefing on Thursday. ‘‘It was a flawless first flight.’’ It rose to 7,500 feet, reaching a cruising speed of 195 knots and then returning to base as a F-18 chase plane kept a close eye on its flight. Eventually, the Pentagon wants a plane that can climb to 40,000 feet, evade radar and carry several so-called small diameter bombs now under development. (LA Times-Washington Post)