A video shows the moment a fixed-wing aircraft achieved its first conventional landing on HMS Prince of Wales off the Cornish coast.
The autonomous drone, commencing its journey from the Lizard Peninsula, not only delivered supplies to the aircraft carrier but also successfully returned, highlighting the immense potential of autonomous naval aviation.
The first-ever landing on a UK aircraft carrier by an autonomous fixed-wing aircraft has taken place. These trials pave the way for ultimately replacing traditional helicopters performing routine duties such as moving supplies around a task group. pic.twitter.com/5EKw6Ya6ez
— UK Defence Journal (@UKDefJournal) September 8, 2023
Lieutenant Ash Loftus, who spearheaded the trials for the Royal Navy aboard HMS Prince of Wales, expressed, “Today’s demonstration is the culmination of 18 months of hard work from dozens of people across the Royal Navy and W Autonomous Systems. Carrier aviation is amongst the most difficult aspects of naval warfare and this success is testament to their efforts.”
The drone’s landing and take-off abilities are further accentuated by its innovative autopilot system, negating the need for remote control by skilled pilots, and its capacity to operate in challenging environments.
Capable of carrying a 100kg payload for up to 1,000 kilometres (620 miles), it requires a mere 150 metres runway for landing or take-off, slightly over half the length of the flight decks on the UK’s Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers.
Stephen Wright, executive chairman and founder of W Autonomous Systems, proclaimed, “This landing demonstrates the agility of our autonomous drone. We are hugely proud to deliver this ground-breaking trial for the Royal Navy and showcase the future of aviation.”
The trials off Cornwall were the first stage of an autumn programme pushing the boundaries of naval aviation for Britain’s biggest warship.
HMS Prince of Wales will be operating off the Eastern Seaboard of the USA until Christmas as she conducts experiments with F-35 Lightning stealth fighters, MV-Osprey tilt-rotors, and the Mojave drone.
Useful payload. 100kg is a reasonable amount of stores. If it’s scaled up to 10 of these drones operating shuttle runs then you can imagine it will reduce the need for helicopter flights and maybe even RAS for dry cargo. A larger cargo drone could be developed off the back of this programme.
Sadly, no renewable companies have submitted bids in the 2023 offshore wind auction, announced today. Schraps’ Energy and Net Zero department set a deliberately low maximum price for the auction of £44/MWh, when the spot price for CCGT electricity this year has averaged £445/MWh. Doubtless, the Treasury was intending to impose a humungous windfall profits tax to “even up” the price difference between fossil fuel generated electricity and wind turbine juice
Following the Vattenfall fiasco, where a half built offshore windfarm development was abandoned after £450million had been spent, this deliberate incompetence marks the end of the deveopment of wind energy resources in the N Sea, and the UK as a world leader in renewable energy. Sunak, Schraps and Hunt should hang their heads in shame.
Agree it was an insanely low maximum price, clearly aimed at gouging the offshore wind generators..it says something that while they protect the profits of the hydrocarbon pumpers they are willing to hit the companies willing to invest in off shore wind with what is essentially a massive and completely unfair 100% windfall tax on anything over what would essentially be around a break even position in 2021.To me it shows how much influence the old hydrocarbon industries have over government compared to the new future industries….they should actually be encouraging these with a higher maximum price per MWh. When you think even in 2021 the cost of 1 MWh of hydrocarbon produced power was well over £100 ( £114 estimates) and wind was £44…they basically stitched the off shore wind companies by placing a 100% tax on any price over a price estimate created for the minimum cost of generation in 2021…basically this government killed off shore wind on purpose.
I think they were hoping BP would bid without subsidy. Agree, it’s a total Tory disgrace screweing up the one promising new industry we have.
Thank heavens they moved Grant Shapps away from the Energy Security ministry then. Er… Just a minute…
The fellow is as much use as a handbrake in a canoe.
Why is it promising? We’re not a leader in wind. We’re not going to export wind technology in any meaningful volumes. Not anywhere in the top 10. And how will the top one do when we only produce electric vehicles?
Motor vehicles – £14.6 billion. …
Pharmaceuticals – £13.2 billion. …
Refined petroleum – £8.8 billion. …
Natural gas and crude petroleum – £7.4 billion. …
Jewellery – £5.5 billion. …
Clothing – £4.5 billion. …
Organic basic chemicals – £4.2 billion. …
Plastics and plastic products – £906 million.
Hi Jonathan
Rarely have I read such a succinct brief on the Sunak government’s complete incompetence, particularly when it comes to renewables. Much appreciated.
Renewable electricity last winter displaced more than a third of the UK’s entire annual gas demand for power generation, the equivalent of 95TWh of gas – equal to 110 tankers of LNG, saving us £billions in import costs. In 2022, UK renewables provided 38 per cent of the country’s electricity generation, nearly as much as gas (at 40 per cent) and we became a NET ELECTRICITY EXPORTER for the first time since 2010. Sunak/Hunt just placed a humungous “windfall profit’s tax” on renewable electricity, forcing up the price of the cheapest form of electricity available to us.
Over 1.5 million people are now working in the UK green economy, Sunak is heavily influenced by the fossil fuel lobby, which relentless pumps anti EV and anti-renewables bullshit into the UK right wing press.
It’s a crazy situation. The concept of energy self sufficiency is an issue of national security. The National grid needs to generate 400-500TWs of electricity per annum to aide with transition to net zero.
The UK needs 50gw/HR off shore wind capacity. We currently have 14gw.
Instead we seem to actually want to pay Norway, France for gas and electricity or UAE / Saudi for LNG imports.
The only good news was the announcement of 3 Geothermal schemes today which should generate upto 3GWs of thermal power, so decent. The UK actually has the right deep rocks to generate large quantities of geothermal power. Just takes investment.
I think big business and the interests of foreign companies and governments has come into play as Sunak and Co are clearly corrupt and have zero interest in getting the UK as rapidly as possible to net zero and national energy self sufficiency. It would be great for our national balance of trade to have an energy surplus we could sell to the EU, rather than being a net importer.
Hey ho. Let’s vote this Muppets out and hope Starmer and co can do better.
Yep..I would have to say this and the…”it was not me that said we could not repair all the schools before they fell on kids heads” is probably that last gasp of Sunak…he’s been proven to be incompetent, not on his briefs or just not giving a shit with these.
So how much profit % did BP make? What was their UK only profit %? Vodaphone is currently around 10% profit much higher than BP’s. Shell is selling its UK energy business, I can see within a decade Shell leaving the UK, relisting in the US, BP may well follow suit. If the current government is so influenced why are Shell quitting the UK?
On wind energy, the next government has promised to start a UK energy company which will not need to borrow or use investor money for the infrastructure, using government borrowing instead. Why would any energy company invest in a non level playing field?
Wind is proving to be more expensive over all, when the wind doesn’t blow the asset (turbine ) isn’t producing (but you still have to pay for that asset), you need to store the energy for when its not generated and you need to increase grid capacity to move the energy to storage. Real cost of wind or renewable energy put simply is cost of production + Cost of storage + cost of increased grid.
To store renewables for a few weeks and with the increased demand from switching everything to electric by 2050 well need 100Twh of storage that’s over 1 billion Tesla batteries or an equivalent!! You don’t need to make that investment with a fuel source that can guarantee an output.
I’m not pro hydrocarbons just people need understand real world and for balance the costs of hydrocarbon fuels should include the cost of offsetting or capture. But we need to get away from fantasy front pages of the UKs politically aligned press.
The issue here is not about profits it’s about the fact the governments set the price cap so low the off shore wind produces could not make a profit. The 44p cap was not cogent with any business model…onshore was given a 52p MWh cap…the previous off shore cap had been 46.5p per MWh…there are only two causes for this either it was purposeful to essentially inhibit growth in our off shore wind or it was incompetence.
I would say shell and BP will probably move away from UK oil and gas extraction but that’s more around the business model of the small mature fields you see in the north see…the larger oil companies tend to sell off their mature fields to small companies after a while so the than generate capital for further exploration..if you look at the larger companies they often go through a cycle of raising capital from older assets and fields.
I would debate the fact wind is more expensive than hydro carbon…that’s just not been the case over that last few years…the cost of 1MWh of from hydro carbons was well over twice that of off shore wind in 2021. Yes sometimes the wind does not blow..but actually
In regards to battery storage, the reality is as we shift to electric cars we creat a large storage solution organically and electric cars become a way to stabilise the grid ( we all become micro storage and suppliers…this is beginning to happen now). But generally speaking wind power is only really impacted badly in summer when we develop a blocking high pressure and an anti cyclone effect and that is then prime time for solar to kick in..during the winter months when solar is at its worst wind is at its best….infact it’s pretty much impossible to have conditions in which both solar and wind are not effective apart from night times nights which can easily be managed by nuclear, wave, tides and storage…we really have no excuse to be burning hydrocarbons..it’s both killing humanity as well as wasting a finite resource we need for manufacturing.
Jonathan only juet getting to your earlier post.
Sorry there no way a few million electric cars will provide the level of storage required, only those who live in properties where they can plug their car in all night will be able to provide energy back to the grid and even those plugged in will not want their batteries fully drained, also batteries have cycle life so your going to curtail you battery life to sell energy back to the grid under the price you paid for it whilst reducing the life of your expensive vehicle battery. We currently consume 300Twh a year which is set to double in the coming years, a Tesla battery is 75kwh if you completely exhaust it. Even to provide some modest storage, just one Twh of storage is 13,333,333 Tesla batteries completely drained, you not going to want to do that and need some redundancy, so you could add 20-20% to that. And yes you may be correct the 100Twh of storage is perhaps the perfect scenario which many never arise but even half of that is 100s of millions of batteries. Which need to be bought, installed, maintained and disposed of or recycled every 7-10 years. That’s a huge hidden cost to any intermittent power generation. However do we need the perfect scenario to really hit renewables, a few weeks of low wind and sun would see farm unable to top up storage, whilst storage is steadily drawn off to improve supply… doesn’t sound like secure energy to me unless we have the storage to guarantee supply = costs.
On the pricing the Tories are known to challenge industry, after all they set a price of £250m each for T31s only for industry to say its not possible Rather than there being some nefarious Hollywood style plot to support oil companies, perhaps they just pushing the private sector to deliver at lower costs and to see where the limit is. Nothing worse than offer a price for something and getting it accepted straight away, you’d be thinking dam could nave got is cheaper. 😀
Aren’t there close to 40 F-35Bs now though?
There are. And they do not need to be lined up on parade at all times on the carrier. They deploy to it for exercises and operations. The capability has already been proven.
Drones, Merlin, Crowsnest and FSS vessels are the gaps that need greater attention.
As I thought, I don’t understand this chatter about there being no F35s – 40odd F35s rocking up on anyone’s coast line is going to give them a very very bad day
Well they won’t all be doing that as that includes the 3 orange wired ones in the US and there is the OCU and OEU too. Numbers are growing very slowly.
As for the “chatter” I think It is for several reasons.
138 was quoted as the number. People either expected that as the number all at the same time or to be stuck to. Both were unrealistic given HMG cuts and the manpower available.
When people envisage an aircraft carrier they inevitably think US Navy, crammed full of aircraft the likes of which only the US is capable of.
They also see 2 in service with the RN and expect both to have an airwing. Again, false. This was not the plan all the way back to 2010, when at one point only one would be crewed and the other in reserve. That we have both with crews is a massive plus, and in time I hope to see a mixed airwing for both.
They also see the RN’s carrier with an empty deck, equals in their subconscious mind no aircraft.
Well the carrier does not set sail from port with aircraft, they tend to join it later direct from their land base.
They also have no need to line up on deck if they can be put in the hanger.
And thirdly, why do they need to? Our Tanks are not trundling up and down the barracks at all times either, and the RAF’s assets are not all lined up on the pan on RAF Stations.
I know my friend ABC here disagreed once on that and thinks for perception reasons, be they UK, allies, or enemies, we should display more. I don’t see the need myself but there you go. Maybe a photo op is just the thing with a bigger number on deck.
Then you have the Block IV issues, which have been done to death here to the point some posters will be mere skeletons with cobwebs hanging off them by the time some get the reasons into their heads that the MoD is reluctant to buy more at a faster rate until that Block IV issue is sorted.
Never mind the fact that the crews and pilots for them need to be trained.
Also, I think there is understandable frustration and impatience that as we are regenerating this, we want it now and will not wait. Never mind the complexities of the undertaking, to the extent hardly any observers will have a clue as to what is involved, and that includes me.
As our SME on carriers here, Robert, has said many times. The capability is there, IF there is a war the gloves are off and that carrier will have an air group on it, and weapons installed that posters keep saying are not there that should be. The group would have to deploy with the deficiencies it has for now, which the military do rather well.
Giving the RN an asset that how many other nations can match?
When asked to name this vast list of nations the critics fall silent.
The pinch points for me are not even the F35s themselves.
They are lack of ASM on the F35. Block IV impacts this too.
Lack of Merlin.
Crowsnest.
And the FSS vessels enabling the group.
With the exception of the the ASM all less sexy things for posters who only see the bang and the firepower.
Finally, with the constant decline in our numbers and attitude of HMG people moan, and often rightly, including me.
But I also try to see the positives, which are many. But that is not the British thing is it?
If all we do is moan might as well take up birdwatching as it is not making any difference.
Just my views on the carrier capability. I’m damned proud of all this myself.
Posters such as the one above, Peter Fernch , are deliberately promoting a false narrative.
For some reason there are a large number of journalists and political figures, often on the right (not always but the Telegraph seems a common mouthpiece for such people), often in the Daily Telegraph who maintain this attitude.
They often point to the (supposed) success of the China carrier program, which currently has two very inferior carriers with a very small number of (low takeoff weight aircraft) inferior planes.
It is very political and a little beyond me to understand.
I suspect a lot are pro army journalists and ex army officers trying to distract from the army’s own failures by blaming the big bad RN and big bad Admiral who is CDS. I have read it myself.
This inter service nonsense is not helpful.
Agree, not sure what they want us to do with that big army, they don’t seem to like the Polish and they don’t want us guarding Germanys boarder.
Have it all marching round Buckingham Palce no doubt.
The Toeygraph and the daily mail were decrying the death of the Royal Navy in 1913 as well, they did not seem to have such a big problem with a small navy in the 30’s though when they were supporting the Nazi’s.
It’s amazing these papers are still going and spewing out the same shite for over a century.
Small government types tend to see any government spend as wasted…they will always say how much they support security, law and order..but when it comes time to spend on the armed forces and police…there small government dogma always overcomes reality and the attack the large expensive programmes that are needed. 100,000 squaddies with a rifle is fine all the expensive stuff modern armed forces actually need….waste of taxpayers money.
Here, here Daniele – we’ll said!
“I don’t understand this chatter about there being no F35s “
Just replace the word “chatter” with the word “trolling” and it becomes a whole lot easier to understand!
Quite right Daniele. No need to show off like some nations do, we know we have capability for serious issues. Time to move on with tech, that’s what we’re very good at, especially military technical hardware.
Cheers
George
No argument with your second paragraph Daniele, but whichever way it is looked at we still only have one operational squadron with a strength of 8/10 aircraft? I k now I shall probably get shot down yet again for mentioning this but one squadron in six years.
And continued delays with TR3 it appears.
07 SEPTEMBER 2023
Lockheed Martin delays F-35 deliveries further because of TR-3 issues
“We have updated our F-35 TR-3 schedule projections with a first TR-3 aircraft delivery between April and June 2024.”
16 Mar 2023
“WASHINGTON — The Pentagon expects that an engine upgrade offered by Pratt & Whitney for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will be ready to field in fiscal 2030 and officials hope that all customers — foreign and domestic — who fly the jet will pitch in to fund its development, according to a spokesperson for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
Meteor/Spear 3 FOC 2035 perhaps?
LINK
“The F-35 Joint Program Office earlier this year said hardware issues had been addressed. But the office later said in June that software issues remained with TR-3, and getting its programming to work with the new hardware was proving difficult.
TR-3 is intended to give the aircraft better displays, computer memory and processing power, and is necessary before a more expansive modernization effort, dubbed Block 4, can be added to the fighter. It was originally due in April 2023.
This means the delivery of fighters with a slate of improvements known as Technology Refresh3, or TR-3, will be at least a year behind schedule. And it could mean nearly an entire year’s worth of F-35s — perhaps up to 150, if production rates continue at full pace — could be parked at Lockheed Martin facilities until the company can deliver them.”
LINK
Nigel…… At least try and be original instead of the same old copy and paste comments from your dusty old PC you are glued to day and night. Tell us all a bit about yourself Nigel? Show us you are actually a human being of the Western world after all.
10 F35B’s is probably a big enough force for any UK solo operation but we also have a surge capability that’s in the 70% range.
That’s soon over 30 F35B’s on the carriers if needed and will be nearly 60 once we finish the second tranche buy at the end of the decade.
60 F35B could take out solo any non NATO+ Airforce on the planet excluding China and it could easily over power anything China can put to sea outside its immediate coast.
I agree we should have two squadrons by now, with an aim for a total of four front line squadrons. Three for Carrier one for land based operations.
I think the second has been delayed by a mix of crew and infrastructure issues.
Honestly we could have 400 F35’s and the Trolls would still claim we have carriers with no aircraft.
The autopilot landing stuff without need for remote pilot is very clever, and hope it is robust enough for various conditions.
The twin tail backend looks very stringbag – like something out of WWI carrier trials. Wonder what the radar signature is?
Hmm, very clever indeed if actually fully autonomous.
…and I hope the system is fully secure, so that it is not spoofed and turned into a missile wiping out half-a-dozen F35s on the flight deck.
Other than that, then yes very, very clever indeed if truly autonomous.
For this demo, civil link with commercial encryption should be OK. In-service system will probably need fully secure long range datalink (or better, satcom for BLOS), military GPS and JPALS. Very difficult to keep SWaP and cost down, unless its a UOR.
There was a remote pilot who landed it.
Great achievement by all involved. The start of many key capability milestones for UK carrier aviation. Looking forward to seeing some footage of the F35B SRVL trials. 🇬🇧
To be honest a quad copter tilt rotor variant would offer a whole new level of capability, ship to ship being one.
They already have one
https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-latest-activity/news/2020/july/31/200731-future-maritime-aviation-force
The closest to a hybrid quadcopter/tiltrotor drone I’ve come across for military is the BAES Australia Strix. It’s not a classic tiltrotor, but effectively works as a tandem-wing tailsitter, with the four propellors pointing upward at take off and landing, and pointing forward as the plane levels in flight. A fascinating design.
This is great, don’t get me wrong. But need to be careful about talking about replacing helicopters for moving stores around etc. Unless the T83, T32 and whatever replaces T26 have a flight deck 150+ m long then ship to ship will need at least a tilt rotor- which I personally think is the most viable solution.
That shouldn’t take away from what this is though, a great achievement- particularly in how autonomous everything has been. And, ultimately, it’s the software that is the tricky bit- size and propulsion are just variables once you get that right. And yes, I am oversimplifying a bit.
They already have a quad copter to do this.
Nice, but do they have 1000km range (the requirement)?
A very impressive clip however what use is this if you have a Frigate or destroyer operating without the carrier What we need is MQ-8B Fire Scout that can transport cargo from Carrier and Frigate
The new Proteus drone, in development at Leonardo Yeovil, should be a significant improvement on the MQ-8C and far exceed the older B model Fire Scout. We just have to hope it’s not ordered on a shoestring, FFBNW everything.
It never ceases to amaze me how technology has changed in over 100 years.
“A century ago, the U.S. Navy commissioned the USS Langley—an ungainly new ship that would forever change military aviation. They’ve been called “Cities at Sea.” Crewed by as many as 5,000 sailors and measuring more than 1,000 feet long, an aircraft carrier is a floating air base able to project power almost anywhere in the world, carrying as many as 90 aircraft. This year, the carrier celebrates its 100th birthday, born in the form of the USS Langley, a plodding little flattop commissioned in 1922. The Langley was an experiment to see if aircraft could operate effectively off ships. Langley showed it could be done, and then trained the U.S. Navy’s first generation of carrier aviators.”
https://airandspace.si.edu/sites/default/files/styles/callout_half/public/2022-01/22O_Wint2022_BuildingLangley-LangleyAirplaneLanding_LIVE.jpg
HMS Argus was the UK’s first dedicated carrier, built in 1918, slightly too late to see action in WW1.
👍
https://i.pinimg.com/564x/85/4c/6c/854c6cd0da52c97853f43855e98a1c0c.jpg
Any updates on Meteor/Spear 3 integration yet?
New engines to power and cool them?
2035 perhaps?
Mar 2023
“WASHINGTON — The Pentagon expects that an engine upgrade offered by Pratt & Whitney for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will be ready to field in fiscal 2030 and officials hope that all customers — foreign and domestic — who fly the jet will pitch in to fund its development, according to a spokesperson for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter”
“The F-35 Joint Program Office earlier this year said hardware issues had been addressed. But the office later said in June that software issues remained with TR-3, and getting its programming to work with the new hardware was proving difficult.
TR-3 is intended to give the aircraft better displays, computer memory and processing power, and is necessary before a more expansive modernization effort, dubbed Block 4, can be added to the fighter. It was originally due in April 2023.
This means the delivery of fighters with a slate of improvements known as Technology Refresh3, or TR-3, will be at least a year behind schedule. And it could mean nearly an entire year’s worth of F-35s — perhaps up to 150, if production rates continue at full pace — could be parked at Lockheed Martin facilities until the company can deliver them.”
LINK
Always check the facts!
“And the very powerful lift fan is RR. That alone produces some 20:000lb of thrust. Or roughly the same as a single EJ200 on full reheat.” 👍
Typhoon:
The engine will have dry thrust of around 78 kN (or 17,500 lbf) with a reheated output of around 120 kN (or 27,000 lbf).
Not your own words though eh Nigel. Did you serve on that Uncle Albert 🫡 Pretty amazing that we can build a 5th gen all aspect stealth VSTOL supersonic, agile strike fighter with the worlds most advanced and capable avionics that is affordable in this day and age. Such have been the advances in technology in just 100 years. Incredible design and engineering. Not that you can appreciate that. Toot toot! 🇬🇧🇺🇲
I think you’ll find It’s being built in the U.S. Robert, albeit with some U.K. parts.✈
Yes, but 15% of value is UK kit. Every single rear fuselage is manufactured in the UK for all F35 varients for all customers. The electronic warfare system is from BAE systems. Martin Baker ejection seat ect. And the very powerful lift fan is RR. That alone produces some 20:000lb of thrust. Or roughly the same as a single EJ200 on full reheat. 👍
👍
Thought Prince of Wales was trialing the MQ-9B STOL For Small Flat TopsMQ-9B SeaGuardian can stay up for over a day Now we are talking. UK always seems to fire fighting
It will be, once it reaches the US east coast.
I don’t think MQ-9B STOL kits are available yet; GA only announced to intent to develop them about 15 months ago.
PWLS will start trialling the slightly smaller Mojave drone at Westlant 23.
Maybe mentioned already and off topic but the Liverpool Echo mentions Fort Victoria entering Cammell Laird on Monday September 4h
Phil
Great stuff. Thanks George. Reminds me of the Bronco without the fuselage.
Wondering if drones will take up the role of AEW, given they could have long flight endurance, and you could easily stow more of them than conventional aircraft.
An AEW drone would need to be significantly larger in size to generate enough electricity in the order of 1000’s Kilowatts to meet radar energy requirements. Most likely similar in size to Bell V247?
Excellent article, and excellent news for the MOD in general. So maybe at some point, the UK could increase it’s Carrier fleet, with a new type of amphibious warfare vessel, for drones?
Developing Leonardo Helicopters Project Zero would be excellent. Shame it’s defunct.
Leonardo did revisit this concept a couple of years back and even put out some teaser art, but last I heard dropped it in favour of a more classical rotary design.
https://aviationweek.com/sites/default/files/styles/crop_freeform/public/2022-08/proteus-leonardo_helicopters_promo.jpg