No, they really don’t have an intent to arm this aircraft, because it’s a demonstrator. The X-47B does have a weapons bay, and it’s supposedly designed to carry existing munitions. When they do stuff missiles in it, it will magically become the F-47 and thus they will have kept their promise about the X-47B. ;-)
The aircraft has roles other than combat — e.g. surveillance — but they are being really smart about having “a combat design ready to go.” The munitions it will carry are the same as currently used on other aircraft. The engine is a Pratt & Whitney F100 that is used on F-15s and F16s. The parts are largely “off the shelf.”
Interestingly, they’ve already taken the brain out of the X-47B and put it in an F/A-18 fighter jet. That jet has already made completely autonomous takeoffs and arrested landings on an aircraft carrier. So even if the X-47B didn’t go anywhere, they’ve already got Maverick’s brain in a box, ready to plug into other aircraft.
There are obvious potential problems — waiting for a vehicle to arrive if you live out in the sticks, for example. Or, in a densely-populated area, how to handle the demand surge during morning and afternoon rush hours (queuing for vehicle availability). The economic impacts are potentially massive: how much of the economy is based on people owning cars? Societal impacts as well — what if the cost per trip was competitive with mass transit? Even real estate — you wouldn’t need massive parking lots in the dead center of town, if the cars were smart enough to park themselves a couple of miles away. They’d even be smart enough to start driving to town before you called for them (in anticipation of peak usage, concerts ending, bars closing, etc.)
Thanks for giving me that “Whoa, he just described the future!” feeling :-)
