Testing
Brock Technologies has announced that its Havoc Unmanned Aircraft System undertook its first flight on 24 October 2011. Brock Technologies claim that the UAS will ‘bridge the gap between affordability and capability’. The Havoc was developed under a series of Air Force SBIR contracts. The twin boom, pusher 2-stroke
Testing
The Naval Research Laboratory Vehicle Research Section has successfully completed flight tests for the Autonomous Deployment Demonstration (ADD) programme. The final demonstration took place on September 1 at the Yuma Proving Grounds, Yuma, Arizona, and consisted of a series of eight balloon-drops at altitudes of up to 57,000
Data Links & Communications
Privately-owned Israeli company, IMC Microwave Industries, has developed a data link that will enable an operator to control a loitering weapon system even when it begins its dive towards a target. Until now, the company has been operating under heavy secrecy, but Flightglobal was allowed to visit the company
Accidents
A US official said that Washington had no indication that an unmanned aircraft that had crashed in Iran had actually been shot down. In Tehran, state television quoted a military source as saying that Iran's military had shot down a US reconnaissance drone aircraft in eastern Iran. "
Commercial
The Chair of Architecture and Digital Fabrication at the FRAC Cultural Centre in Orléans, France has commissioned a 3 month exhibition entitled "Flight Assembled Architecture". It runs from 01.12.2011-26.02.2012 and claims to be the first architectural installation to be built dynamically by flying
Testing
Indra made a flight demo of two of its unmanned aircraft - Mantis plane and the Pelican helicopter - at Villamartin aerodrome (Cadiz, Spain) during the European Robotics Week. The Mantis is the smallest model (2,10 meter wing) of the family of UAS developed by the company. The system, ready to
Testing
Sagem (Safran group) has successfully completed a series of flight tests of its long-endurance unmanned surveillance aircraft, Patroller. These 14 test flights, carried out at the Istres air force base in southern France from September 19 to October 21, met the following objectives: * Qualification of the aircraft’s in-
Military
A US unmanned surveillance aircraft that went missing last week in western Afghanistan appears to have crashed in Iran. According to state television in Iran, the nation’s defence forces brought the aircraft down, which the Iranian reports said was an RQ-170 stealth aircraft. US officials acknowledged Sunday that
Commercial
High-end real estate agent Stephen Shapiro, is now using video taken from a small hexrotor unmanned helicopter to sell expensive homes in Southern California. In this tough economic market selling a home formerly owned by a star can even be a tough sell. To the person with $25 million
Commercial
Unmanned aircraft equipped with specialised imaging devices could monitor the general status of remote gas fields in Russia. Anglo-Russian venture TNK-BP announced it was starting to organize a fleet of aerial drones to monitor its Samotlorskoe gas field in West Siberia. The aircraftwere developed especially for the company
Testing
Boeing has been using Odense Airport in Denmark for test flights of small unmanned aircraft. The tests involved designing new technologies to make unmanned aircraft able to fly more predictably and efficiently. Boeing chose Odense for its test flights, because there is plenty of capacity at the airport and place
Payloads
Harris Corporation is broadening the capabilities of its RF-7800T Situational Awareness Video Receiver (SAVR) to address growing requirements for secure wireless digital intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance video at the tactical edge. Harris has integrated the Small Unmanned Aerial Systems Digital Data Link (SUAS-DDL) waveform with the RF-7800T