This is the name of the super drone tested yesterday by Northrop Grumman, which together with the similar “Fury” and “Vendetta” will constitute flocks of aircraft directed by a single pilot. Latest generation technology but on a simplified and less expensive project
The Yfq-48A Talon Blue armed super drone (Blue Claw), built by Northrop Grumman, or the collaborative combat aircraft (Cca), which successfully completed its first flight in a completely autonomous manner, will be the enemy’s nightmare. According to a recent company press release, the Talon Blue took off from the runway at the Experimental Center in Mojave, California, for a mission that included taxiing, takeoff, in-flight maneuvers and landing phases.
Among the technical characteristics, its design was modular, i.e. such as to innovate production processes to reduce costs and accelerate production without compromising the operational capabilities of the aircraft. This was achieved by reducing the number of components and overall weight, lowering costs and optimizing production times to meet the growing demand for autonomous weapons systems. Concretely, the Talon Blue has 50% fewer components than its competitors and weighs less than 460 kg.
The new unmanned aerial vehicles
In the press release released by the company, Craig Woolstonvice president and general manager of Advanced Research and Engineering at Northrop Grumman, said, “Our customers have said they need autonomous systems that can be fielded more quickly and more affordably, without sacrificing mission effectiveness. We listened to them: the first flight of the Talon Blue represents a step forward towards a new generation of autonomous attack capability, and each flight and each lesson learned during development strengthens our overall work in the field of autonomy and refines the subsequent phases of the project».
The announcement came a few weeks after the declaration by the leaders of the United States Air Force (USAF) regarding the objective of having 500 autonomous aircraft available in service by 2032. Meanwhile, the Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink has announced the names of the competing aircraft, the Fq-44A from Anduril and the Fq-42A from General Atomics, which will be respectively called Fury (Fury) and Vengeance. Production contracts for the two companies were awarded in June, a month before Anduril completed its first test fire, while General Atomics plans to carry out its own test fires in the fall of this year.
At the time of writing, the USAF has not yet awarded Northrop Grumman a contract for the CCA aircraft, but the company is included in the group of reference suppliers for the production of software that allows the autonomous carrying out of missions. The military has set a goal of completing the selection by summer 2027.
The characteristics of the new super drone
To understand how the Blue Talon works, it is necessary to consider it with the technical definition of UCAV Loyal Wingman (unmanned armed aircraft in faithful wingman mode), designed to support manned fighters such as the F-15EX Eagle II, F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning in action. It will also have to act with the future sixth generation fighter of the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program both in air-to-air missions and for ground attacks in areas where there is the threat of defense saturation, thus avoiding placing the pilot of the traditional airplane in further danger.
The beginning of the project dates back five years ago, when Northrop Grumman, thanks to its subsidiary Scaled Composites, Project Lotus, developed a smaller and cheaper unmanned aerial system. Aesthetically the Yfq-48A appears with a long and thin fuselage with the engine air intake positioned on the back, lambda-shaped swept wing and V-shaped empennages.
Thrust is guaranteed by a specially developed version of the Pratt & Whitney PW500 engine, which is a family of turbofans created for medium-sized civil aircraft such as some business jets (it is installed on the Embraer Phenom 300 and Cessna Citation 560XL). And this too is a choice that goes in the direction of reducing costs. It generates a maximum thrust of 2300 kg and has already been used on other drones such as the Mq-20 Avenger. The cost of a «Blue Claw» will vary between 25 and 35 million dollars per specimen depending on the quantity of specimens produced per batch.
