18 May 05. Boeing began testing its fourth block of software for the X-45A unmanned aircraft during a flight May 13 at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. Following a series of successful ground and taxi tests in April and early May, the Boeing Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems’ (J-UCAS) X-45A completed its 51st flight demonstrating that the basic command and control and flight functionality shown in the previous software block worked properly with the new software. This was the first test of the Block 4 software with the aircraft flying to approximately 15,000 feet at 0.40 Mach. The software used and tested on the X-45A may be offered as a candidate for functionality in the development of the J-UCAS Common Operating System. In another announcement, an audience of UK aerospace and technology companies have been given the opportunity to work with Boeing to exploit the increasing world wide interest in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), to ensure that UK industry will be well equipped to take advantage of the projected £6bn global spend in this market.
17 May 05. Performance Technologies announced the company’s CPC6600 Embedded Ethernet Switch will be used by Northrop Grumman for the Global Hawk in production for the U.S. Air Force.