U.S. Sen. John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Serves Committee, has written a letter to Defense Secretary Ash Carter, asking him to build the UCLASS as a strike platform with 4,000lb payload.
By DoD photo by Capt. Jane E. Campbell, U.S. Navy. (Released) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
The former U.S. Navy fighter pilot set a very high performance specification for the new unmanned aircraft. He wanted it to have “unrefueled endurance several times that of manned fighters; a refueled mission endurance measured in days; broadband, all-aspect radar cross-section reduction sufficient to find and engage defended targets.”