Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works is proposing a stealthy, tailless flying-wing design for the U.S. Navy's Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (Uclass) program. The 66-ft.-span, 30,000-lb.-gross-weight aircraft strongly resembles the Skunk Works private-venture P-175 Polecat and once-classified RQ-170 long-endurance UAVs. Boeing, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems and Northrop Grumman also are competing for the Uclass program contract to field a squadron of six unmanned aircraft on a carrier by around 2020. To maintain competition and reduce risk, the Navy plans to fund all four through their preliminary design reviews and early in 2015 select a single contractor to proceed into a technology demonstration phase.
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