Earlier this year, the U.S. Navy rolled out the X-47B, its first combat UAV (or UCAS, for Joint Unmanned Combat Aerial System). This is part of a six year long, $636 million contract to build and test two X-47B aircraft. The test program calls for first flight later this year, and first carrier operations by 2011. The navy believes that, with aerial refueling, a X-47B can stay aloft for fifty hours. With internal fuel, it can go 2,700 kilometers and return to its carrier. This greatly expands the reconnaissance capability of a carrier.
With that kind of range, it can strike enemy assets that would threaten the carrier while giving the carrier a lot more ocean to hide in.
This isn't an argument to keep building Fords to replace our current Nimitz class ships. We should still plan for the ships and systems that will be the centerpiece of our Navy. After all, UCAS could fly off of much smaller decks, right?
But with the major costs of our existing carriers already paid for (I hesitate to use the term "sunk costs"), anything that extends the useful life of these assets should be exploited.
