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Navy tests Magic Carpet carrier landing technology

Magic Carpet system aims to streamline fixed-wing carrier landing process.

By Geoff Ziezulewicz
The Navy's Air Test and Evaluation Squadron recently tested software, called Magic Carpet, aimed at making it easier to land fixed-wing aircraft on an aircraft carrier, on the USS George Washington. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Clemente A. Lynch
The Navy's Air Test and Evaluation Squadron recently tested software, called Magic Carpet, aimed at making it easier to land fixed-wing aircraft on an aircraft carrier, on the USS George Washington. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Clemente A. Lynch

WASHINGTON, June 29 (UPI) -- A U.S. Navy technological innovation that makes landing fixed-wing aircraft on an aircraft carrier easier was tested aboard the USS George Washington in the past week.

The Maritime Augmented Guidance with Integrated Controls for Carrier Approach and Recovery Precision Enabling Technologies, better known as Magic Carpet, is technology designed to streamline the carrier landing process, the Navy said in a release.

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The software provides improved safety, efficiency and success rates in recovering fixed-wing aircraft on aircraft carriers.

The Strike Air Test and Evaluation Squadron conducted the tests.

On typical carrier landings, a pilot must align glide slope, angle of attack and line up, often requiring hundreds of individual adjustments to land safely.

Magic Carpet seeks to reduce the pilot's workload during the landing process.

"With the technology, we decoupled the glide slope, angle of attack and line up into three separate pieces," said Capt. David Kindley, the F/A-18 & EA-18G program manager. "Before, if a pilot made one small change to any of these it would affect all the other things. With Magic Carpet, if the pilot wants to adjust glide slope, he just pushes the stick without changing the power or anything else."

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The initial version of the software was tested last year on the USS George H.W. Bush.

The finalized version of the technology is expected to come out in 2019.

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