Thanatos first flight

[Zaphod58]

Kratos has announced that their Thanatos UAV has made its first flight. Thanatos is the most advanced system Kratos has developed to date, and is believed to be part of the USAF CCA program. The Thanatos name was first seen in 2019, along with Aetheon, Apollo, Athena, ‘A & Z’, ‘F’, Omega, Spartan. The company was bidding Demogorgon as part of the Air Force Off Board Sensing Station program, but lost out. They're hoping to receive a contract for the airframe next year.

Aviation Week’s Brian Everstine reported on 11 December that Kratos Defense and Security “recently completed the first flight of its Thanatos stealthy uncrewed combat air vehicle.” The Thanatos initial flight test programme is intended to prove the aircraft’s basic design before work begins in earnest on flying a fully integrated system.
Kratos is known to have worked on multiple classified tactical uncrewed aircraft designs, including LCASD, the X-61A Gremlin, the UTAP-22 Mako and the  stealthy XQ-58A Valkyrie, with the XQ-58A Valkyrie and UTAP-22 Mako drones being used in a number of advanced autonomy development projects and for other test and evaluation projects.

https://aerospaceglobalnews.com/news/kra...en-flight/

[Encia22]

Wow, that is sleek and some great names, too, in the development program.

Seeing those air intakes, I'm curious as to what will power it.

Could it be along the same lines as the Sukhoi S-70 Okhotnik-B?

[Zaphod58]

Wow, that is sleek and some great names, too, in the development program.

Seeing those air intakes, I'm curious as to what will power it.

Could it be along the same lines as the Sukhoi S-70 Okhotnik-B?

The XQ-58 uses the FJ33 turbofan. It's most likely a variant of that, or the GE414. There's very little detail about the specifications released yet.

[putnam6]

Now showing across the night skies of New Jersey?

[Raptured]

Do you think it was a Kratos POC seen over Wichita or west TX years ago?

[Zaphod58]

Do you think it was a Kratos POC seen over Wichita or west TX years ago?

No, I heard what both of those were, and they were both manned. One didn't go anywhere, one did.  That's another one of those where people hit the answer in the thread, and then someone said "What about this" and off on a tangent it went.