SCIENCE IN THE NEWS DAILY
The Future of Military Aviation Is Unmanned
from the Seattle Times
PARIS -- On the edge of the airfield at Le
Bourget, a Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet jet
fighter looms with imposing menace. In front
of it sits a dinky Boeing ScanEagle -- just 4
feet long with a 10-foot wingspan -- with
model-airplane looks, a little rotor turned by
a two-stroke engine, and a flimsy plastic
airframe.
It's the little unmanned surveillance
craft, not the high-performance fighter, that
is part of the new wave in military aviation
at this year's Paris Air Show.
The ScanEagle -- designed and built by
Boeing-owned Insitu, of the Columbia River
Gorge town of Bingen, Klickitat County -- has
been battle-tested in Iraq and Afghanistan,
and played a key role in the April rescue of
U.S. containership captain Richard Phillips
from Somali pirates.
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