Northrop Builds Second X-47B Drone

About a week ago, the second X-47B unmanned aerial vehicle took off from the Edwards Air Force Base (EAFB), in California, at around 12:43 pm PST (2043 GMT). This was the second prototype of the new drone that flew successfully from California.

As a result, the US Navy and Northrop Grumman – the company behind the extremely-capable robotic aircraft – have decided with ramp up production of the UAV, under the guises of the Navy's Unmanned Combat Air System Carrier Demonstration (UCAS-D) program

“The successful addition of AV-2 to the fleet of X-47B test aircraft provides a critical inflection point for the UCAS-D program,” explains the UCAS-D program manager at the Northrop Grumman's Aerospace Systems division, company vice-president Carl Johnson.

Now that engineers have access to two of these aircraft, assessing potential improvements to be made on future models will become easier and faster. The UAV will carry out numerous test flights over the coming months, as experts collect telemetry data of their behavior.