US Navy X-47B Combat Drone Refuels Itself In Air, Autonomously

Drones have become an integral part of any defence establishment. Whether it’s for surveillance or for warfare, armed forces across the world are spending tons of money developing drones that are capable for any situation in the war zone. The US Navy has two new ones, the X-47B series carrier-based unmanned aircrafts. The UAVs have been named as “Salty Dog 501” and “Salty Dog 502”. The “Salty Dog 502” has achieved a tremendous feat in the UAV industry by being the first drone to refuel itself in the air. Yes, military UAVs in the past have managed to do the activity but the Salty Dog 502 did this without any manual input from a pilot on the ground.


As you can see from the image above, the Salty Dog 502 X-47B UAV is trying to grab the fuel line from a refuelling aeroplane belonging to Omega Air Refuelling, a US Department of Defence contractor that modifies Boeing 707s into airtankers. Since the drone can refuel in air, it does not have the miserable range anymore. It can be used for extended long-range missions with ease. After a gas stop, Navy’s first carrier drones fly off to history | Ars Technica points out the fact that the X-47B is one of the few drones that are not flown by a pilot with remote controls; it is guided by commands from an application running on a desktop computer.

With this feat, you might think that these new drones will be commissioned into service but sadly they will be heading into retirement very soon. Even though they have completed only 20% of the potential test flights, the US Navy will be making them into museum exhibits. The reason for this decision is the US Navy’s Unmanned Carrier Launched Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) combat drone. The aforementioned drones have different sizes and performance as compared to the UCLASS drones and thus cannot be inducted into the fleet. No worries though, because the technology used in these drones will be incorporated into UCLASS drones in the future.