SECNAV Sticks With UCLASS Approach fitting GA-ASI Predator C; Congress Says Not Enough - Boeing not happy

Mabus Sticks With UCLASS Approach (& Unisex Uniforms); Hill Says, Not Enough « Breaking Defense - Defense industry news, analysis and commentary
This morning, Mabus defended the Navy’s plans for a relatively modest UCLASS optimized for the “surveillance” aspect of its mission rather than the “strike” part — but he also promised UCLASS would be “the bridge” to a future unmanned strike plane, the one that replaces F-35. Given that the F-35 will be around for decades, however, this two-stage approach is unlikely to satisfy UCLASS critics like Senate ARmed Services chairman John McCain, House Seapower chairman Rep. Randy Forbes, and key players in the Pentagon itself, all of whom want a strike drone ASAP to deal with China.
Mabus said today at a DefenseOne leadership breakfast that “I’m for a full-up penetrating strike fighter” — eventually. “We see UCLASS as getting to that,” he said — but, he made clear, not as being that.
“For UCLASS…we ought to have endurance, we ought to have range, we ought to have payload,” he said, notably omitting stealth. “It should be an ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] platform, it should be a refueling platform, but it also should be a strike platform [for] uncontested or minimally contested environments.”

Boeing ‘Very Disappointed’ With Pentagon’s Uclass Delay | Defense content from Aviation Week

“We have had extensive discussions at a very senior level,” about the Pentagon’s course changes on Uclass, Chadwick says. The changes have reflected internal disagreements about the vehicle’s mission and the extent of stealth technology to be incorporated into the platform. “If the industry is to continue investing in these opportunities, the Defense Department has to solidify its requirements. It does nobody any good to do R&D for the sake of R&D.”

Boeing is believed to have completed, or nearly completed, an UAV intended to demonstrate its technologies for Uclass. It was developed by Boeing’s Phantom Works using company funds.

Previously:

• spendergast: GAO - Navy Needs to Match Its UCLASS Requirements and Available Resources 
• McCain: Navy's UCLASS in Danger without More Stealth, Weapons | DoD Buzz 
• Navy readies for UCLASS competition - IHS Jane's 360 
• spendergast: Quo Vadis Navy’s UCLASS - into Jointness? 
• spendergast: UCLASS stumbles again - Navy wants baby steps - Congress great leap forward