Autonomous Unmanned Boeing Jets ‘Attack’ Targets

In a landmark test flight Friday, two kite-shaped unmanned jets took off from Edwards Air Force Base and flew to 25,000 feet to begin a simulated bombing run, Boeing Co. executives said.

The flight marked the first time that an aircraft solely controlled by its own onboard computers took off and attacked ground targets, Boeing and aerospace analysts said.

“We’ve demonstrated the autonomous attack capability” of unmanned aircraft, said Jim Martin, Boeing’s test director for the X-45A aircraft. “They were autonomous from the get-go.”

In the Afghanistan war, a small U.S. unmanned prop plane fired a missile at a target, but the aircraft was remotely controlled on the ground.

Friday’s test was for the Pentagon’s advanced research agency, DARPA, which is trying to develop planes that can fly long distances on their own and detect and destroy antiaircraft radar and missiles in the first wave of an attack. “It’s quite a significant achievement,” said Richard Aboulafia, aerospace analyst for Teal Group.

But the flight is also likely to “raise a host of legal and ethical questions,” Aboulafia said. “It’s hard to imagine what could happen if there was a misfire.... Who’d be accountable?”