The Persistent Munition Technology Demonstrator or PMTD is an

unmanned aerial vehicle An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or unmanned aircraft system (UAS), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft with no human pilot, crew, or passengers onboard, but rather is controlled remotely or is autonomous.De Gruyter Handbook of Dron ...

(UAV) developed and produced by the Advanced Weapons and Missile Systems division of

Boeing The Boeing Company, or simply Boeing (), is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product support s ...

as a test bed in order to further develop and flight test various UAV technologies. It has also been referred to as the Dominator. The PMTD weighs , has a wingspan and is powered by a single piston engine driving a

pusher propeller In aeronautical and naval engineering, pusher configuration is the term used to describe a drivetrain of air- or watercraft with propulsion device(s) after the engine(s). This is in contrast to the more conventional tractor configuration, whic ...

. It was first flown in April, 2006, at Vandalia Municipal Airport,

Vandalia, Illinois Vandalia is a city in and the county seat of Fayette County, Illinois, United States. At the 2020 Census, the population was 7,458. The city is on the Kaskaskia River and in the early 19th century, Vandalia became the western terminus of the N ...

. Designed for either air or ground launch and high loiter times, the PMTD has the ability to operate completely autonomously. During its maiden flight, the UAV autonomously flew to 14 programmed locations, changed altitude four times, and met all programmed speeds. The initial set of flight tests focused solely on validation of the autonomous flight mode, while future tests will include sensor integration, weapon guidance systems, munitions dispensing systems and in-flight refueling.

EDO Corporation EDO Corporation was an American company which was acquired by ITT Corporation in 2007. EDO designed and manufactured products for defense, intelligence, and commercial markets, and provided related engineering and professional services. It emp ...

funded the development of the aircraft's composite airframe, while Boeing funded all the flight tests. Just-in-Time Strike Augmentation (JITSA) is a

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...

program proposal for

network-centric operations Network-centric warfare, also called network-centric operations or net-centric warfare, is a military doctrine or theory of war that aims to translate an information advantage, enabled partly by information technology, into a competitive advantag ...

to command the

battlefield A battlefield, battleground, or field of battle is the location of a present or historic battle involving ground warfare. It is commonly understood to be limited to the point of contact between opposing forces, though battles may involve troop ...

from the

air An atmosphere () is a layer of gases that envelop an astronomical object, held in place by the gravity of the object. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A stellar atmosph ...

using the

C-17 Globemaster III The McDonnell Douglas/Boeing C-17 Globemaster III is a large military transport aircraft developed for the United States Air Force (USAF) between the 1980s to the early 1990s by McDonnell Douglas. The C-17 carries forward the name of two previ ...

to launch large numbers of PMTD into the

battlespace Battlespace or battle-space is a term used to signify a military strategy which integrates multiple armed forces for the military theater (warfare), theatre of operations, including aerial warfare, air, information warfare, information, ground w ...

.USAF eyes large airlifter strike role
/ref>

References

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External links

Boeing aircraft, Persistent Munition Technology Demonstrator 2000s United States experimental aircraft Unmanned military aircraft of the United States Single-engined pusher aircraft Canard aircraft Edo aircraft Low-wing aircraft Aircraft with fixed tricycle landing gear Single-engined piston aircraft

See also

References

External links