F-35 now faces X-47 for carrier missions.

Thanks for the article 0802

The F-35 is suppose to be the Navy's "deep strike" asset.  It goes in using its stealth for 1st day of war missions to attack targets that the Super Hornet can't.  Now we have news that instead of the X-47 being a seagoing Predator UAV, its now competing to do the exact same mission.

via USNI News.

The U.S. Navy appears to have shifted its position on the requirements for its next generation carrier-based unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), Navy officials told USNI News.
Instead of developing the planned Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) to only conduct operations in uncontested airspace, the service will instead pursue a design that can be adapted over time to operating against higher threat levels.
“As a system, what we want to do as an affordability initiative is to ensure that the air vehicle design upfront has the growth capability without major modifications to go from permissive to contested [environments],” said Rear Adm. Mat Winter, Naval Air Systems Command’s (NAVAIR) program executive officer for unmanned aviation and strike weapons during an interview with USNI News on Nov. 10.
“Specific proposals and the designs that are given back to the government, those will be informing us of how much of that permissive to contested and the air refueling provision actually shows up in their designs.”

You have to search high and low but its becoming more and more apparent to me that the US Navy is willing to maintain capability, improve its strike power AND keep its carriers.

And its willing to sacrifice the F-35 to get it done.