改变一切：美国无人机展亮点大放送

海军的无人直升机

    今年初夏，美国海军仍处在试阶段的X－47B无人机成功在乔治布什号航母上起降，它也被称作是美国海军的第一架真正的“无人机”。不过事实上，美国海军还有一款名叫MQ－8B“火力侦察兵”的无人直升机已经服役多年了。上周，“火力侦察兵”的生产商诺斯罗普格鲁曼公司（Northrop Grumman）在AUVSI展会上表示，这个机型在阿富汗战区已经累计飞行了整整5000小时。

    不过关于“火力侦察兵”更有趣的消息则是来自加州莫哈韦沙漠中国湖的美国航空武器站，只是这个消息肯定会使反对无人机的人们感到不舒服。美国海军日前宣布，一架搭载了一套“高级精确杀伤武器系统”的火力侦察兵已经成功完成了12次实弹试击，其中有11次成功命中规定的目标半径之内。美国海军早在一年多以前就开始研究把“高级精确杀伤武器系统”整合到火力侦察兵上。（所谓“高级精确杀伤武器系统”其实是美军从越战时期起遗留下来的一种传统火箭弹，美军对这种老旧的武器进行了升级，在弹身加装了精确制导模块提升了它的智能化。）现在我们知道，他们终于成功了。

The Navy's unmanned helicopter

    When the Navy launched and landed its experimental X-47B unmanned jet aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. George H.W. Bush earlier this summer, it was widely referred to as the Navy's first real "drone." But the Navy has actually been flying an unmanned helicopter known as the MQ-8B Fire Scout for years now. Northrop Grumman (NOC, Fortune 500), maker of the Fire Scout, announced at last week's AUVSI show that a full 5,000 of those hours were logged in the Afghanistan theater of operations.

    But the more interesting news regarding Fire Scout came from Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake in California's Mojave Desert. In a development that will surely make the anti-drone crowd squirm, the Navy announced that a Fire Scout armed with a guided rocket munition known as the Advanced Precision Kill Weapons System had completed 12 firings of the projectile, with 11 of those successfully hitting within the desired target radius. The Navy has been talking about integrating the APKWS (which is essentially a Vietnam-era legacy "dumb" rocket upgraded with a precision guidance module, making it quite smart) on Fire Scout for more than a year. Now we know they've done so, and it's working.