X-45

The unmanned aerial vehicle model X-45 was designed and manufactured by the world famous Boeing airline. The first test flight took place in the spring of 2002 in California. The test flight took place in the desert near Edwards Air Force Base. During testing, the car independently carried out a high-quality lift off the ground, after which it easily gained a height of 2,2 kilometers, while developing a maximum speed of 360 km / h. After that, having described a circle above the base, I safely landed on the surface of the former lake. The entire flight took 14 minutes, while the landing gear was not retracted.

The flight took place on a given program, and with ground control points were fed only the speed command and height. The machine perfectly fulfilled all that was asked by the flight program.

Designing of the UAV unit was engaged in Phantom Works, which is part of the Boeing Corporation. The job has been delivered by the Air Force and the Pentagon. The military plans to install on board the machine homing bombs, it will allow to use it in the most dangerous situations, in addition, the apparatus can suppress the work of ground and air radar systems and disrupt enemy air defenses.

Developers and military have achieved great success in creating X-45, as it can fly more than 1 thousand kilometers without landing, while the car can work at a high altitude of 9 kilometers and develop speed at 965 km / h. The search for the target takes place over 30 minutes before the aircraft reaches the airspace, after which it can deal a powerful air attack with homing bombs with a total mass of up to 1,3 tons. To conduct long-range operations, the X-45 aircraft will be transported using an aircraft such as Lockheed C-5 or Boeing C-17. In the future, it is planned to create a new UAV, which can act as a fighter and effectively hit air targets.

Workers strike UAV X-45 have a greater mass than the prototype. For service units began in 2008 year. In addition to the new machine, in the US arsenal, there are other drones, the most successful is the Predator, it has been used in Afghanistan, inflicting missile strikes.

Not long ago, the airline "Boeing" has lost a large tender for the creation of a new unmanned aircraft company Lockheed Martin. In turn, Boeing plans to release a large number of devices X-45, which will be three times cheaper than superBPLA from the company Lockheed.

It should be noted that a modified version was developed under the designation X-45С. The first device was made, which was demonstrated at many exhibitions. For the development of the project was allocated 900 million dollars. Nevertheless, in 2006, the project was closed and returned to the financing and development of the standard X-45 model. Finally, the project was terminated in 2009, the main reason for the closure was the manufacture of the US Navy own UAV program UCAS. Also, the replacement of X-45 came a newer and better machine X-47. 

X-45. Characteristics:

Other UAVs

Aircraft