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UK seeks to align Corax stealth prototype with its plans for future military aircraft
- Article Tools
| 17 January 2006 |
Corax bears some resemblance to the cancelled Lockheed Martin/ Boeing RQ-3A DarkStar UAV, with a tail-less configuration, and a long-span unswept wing mounted at the rear of a short body section.
However, there are important differences. The body section is straight-edged and pointed rather than being a half-disc shape. The wing is tapered and mounted relatively further forward, and there are two pitch-control surfaces on each side of the exhaust. This avoids one problem with the DarkStar, which was the limited pitch authority available from the wing trailing-edge surfaces: a factor in the loss of the first DarkStar in April 1996. Compared with DarkStar, which was designed with an emphasis on a low side-on signature - matching its side-looking sensors - Corax is optimised for all-round stealth.
If Corax is the start of a versatile family, it is a step towards the MoD's Strategic Unmanned Air Vehicle (Experiment) - SUAV(E) - which is intended to explore the use of UAVs for deep missions and to pave the way for procurement decisions in 2009-10. As such, it could point the way towards an operational-scale UK UCAV demonstrator.
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