
Four American companies will demonstrate concepts for an unmanned carrier-launched airborne surveillance and strike (UCLASS) aircraft to the U.S. Navy. Study contracts worth about $500,000 each were awarded late June to General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI, which offers the Sea Avenger version of the jet-powered Predator C); Lockheed Martin (a version of the still-secret RQ-170 Sentinel); Northrop Grumman (already flying the X-47B under a previous Navy contract) and Boeing (which will adapt the recently flown Phantom Ray). The Navy is looking for a carrier-based persistent intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR) and strike capability by 2018.
In a recent briefing to journalists, Darryl Davis, Boeing Phantom Works president, described UCLASS as “a program that’s emerging rapidly. [It is] probably the next program of record that goes to a down-select in the next 12 months or so.”