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30 Seconds Over X-47B

By John Batchelor on February 8, 2011 at 11:00 AM in Current Affairs

The US Navy answers the flimsy, impudent and stealthy China J-20 with a joy to behold, an aircraft carrier launched stealthy drone, X-47B.

This is heaven sent to wreck the sunny day of a PLA Navy cadre looking to win air superiority over the South China Sea by 2025.

A stealthy carrier drone can easily launch form a stealthy carrier. Not much profile, minimum manpower, full of robots, the 21st century Enterprise.  The PLA Navy is not ready for prime time in the face of the X-47B.  Everything about this prototype release suggests that Robert Gates ordered Muller to go ahead and release the video.   Even if it happened by accident, the paranoid knuckleheads in Beijing can only think of thair retirements and shopping privileges at the Party PX in jeopardy now that they have been outfoxed by the Crusaders.  Look to the scrap in 2033.

x-47pegasus_5.jpg
  • helenk

    How awsome.

  • JimTicehurst

    America..Freedom and Technology..Can’t wait to see the Next generations of Planes and Space Craft…I am Proud of what we can Produce..

  • Mirlo

    OT? Amnesty International has filed a criminal complaint to the Federal Procecutor’s office in Switzerland against former US Pres George W. Bush, for breach of the torture convention.
    Soon after, George Bush has cancelled a planned visit to Geneva, officially stating anounced protests against him being the reason for not going.

    The Swiss Justice Department is of the opinion that former President Bush’s actions during his presidency do not fall under Swiss Jurisdiction, but Amnesty International does obviously not agree and goes forward.

    Thought you all might be interested, even though OT

  • +

    If this reduces costs in the military then great….  The military budget needs to be cut in half, back down to 3-4% of GDP and not 5-6% of GDP versus the Chinese at less than 2% of GDP.

  • EllenD

    OK John but your reference to the “Crusaders” seems to have nothing to do with China.

  • oowawa

    I assume this is tongue-in-cheek, but I never know with John Batchelor:

    “A stealthy carrier drone can easily launch form a stealthy carrier.”

    Yep, a stealthy carrier.  Sneaky, sneaky, hard to track those carriers, especially in this age of spy satellites.

    13 April 1971, Washington Post, “Proxmire Seeks Cut in Arms Spending” by George C. Wilson, pg. A16:
    Navy Aircraft Carriers—In war, he said, they would be as easy to hit as a “bull in the butt with a bass fiddle.”

  • Burford

    “Muller?”  Mullen perhaps?

  • oowawa

    Info on the Chinese Chengdu J-20, stealth aircraft mentioned in the article:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengdu_J-20

  • churl

    Best news I’ve seen in a while. (btw, little heads-up to unamed technology thieves– you do know that top level hardware & software comes complete with a Stuxnet variant, right? Right?)

  • Ferd Not-My-Site-(click to edit) Berfle

    If this reduces costs in the military then great
    ==================
    You know nothing about the military as you have never served anyone but yourself and anything but fries at McDonald’s (which is one reason I never eat there). Someone needs fries with that, +. get hopping.

  • Ferd Not-My-Site-(click to edit) Berfle

    Yep, a stealthy carrier.  Sneaky, sneaky, hard to track those carriers, especially in this age of spy satellites.  
    ======================
    Getting anywhere near it is the problem for our enemies, oowawa. Unless those satellites are armed with missiles, they will still have to send aircraft or other ships after it. The carriers still rules the seas, although it is a tenuous rule, at best.

  • JimTicehurst

    They just said on CNN that an Asteroid the size of an Aircraft Carrier  is heading directly for planet earth…Ring Ring..Hello Bruce..Get Your crew together..Hello God…HELP…!
    No..I dnt call Barack..he’s a different kind of disaster..

  • elaine

    Jim, Are you sure CNN is not simply referencing Glen Beck’s story of the $53 Billion Dollar Asteroid?  Which I suspect was just a Beckism

  • JimTicehurst

    Its available under Google search ~ News… Asteroid..Its not due until 2036..The Russians seem to be focused on it alot..I dont know why CNN ran the story tonight…Obama will be  a Grandfather by then..I’m not Canceling my Clubhouse membership yet..

  • Agent X

    Yeah well your launching and retrieving this critter on a fleet carrier which houses a crew of some 5500 folk. Something like this will stay secret for about 30 seconds. Might as well have a presser and show off the new Navy toy…. Can’t wait for the Chinese to accidently run into one of these as they did the EP3 back in 2001.

  • Agent X

    Ferd,

    “The carriers still rules the seas, although it is a tenuous rule, at best.”

    Very, very tenuous and dam near mystical. That is because we have not fought another maritime force with any where near equality since WWII. Besides do not tell this to anyone in the submarine service. They will tell you that our subs have been consistent with disabling carriers in war games. Lets also not mention the plethora of ship killing weapons systems, such as, the SS-N-22 Sunburn, which the Iranians have and that have not been used against any of our ships…yet…

    So tenuous might just be a little understatement…

  • Concerned

    ” Even if it happened by accident, the paranoid knuckleheads in Beijing”…

    Frankly, I wouldn’t be calling them names. I dare say this consistent need to find and label the next enemy would put us in that same category.

    Now I won’t profess to be a military strategist, but one thing for sure, China has bigger domestic issues than foreign. Its military power is still a joke and I dare say we have more to fear from muslim fundamentalists then the Chinese who have more to lose antagonising us than it has to gain. For starters, I’d assume any hostility will give us a pretext to waive the debt :p

    So why do we insist on badgering China anyway when we’ve got bigger problems? It may be the hip thing to do for us to strut around and flex our muscles but I really tire of all the posturing.