Test Ranges
The US Army wants to add a launch site at Dugway Proving Ground for drones that would fly south 150 miles over the Snake Valley in western Utah and back to the Army base. The Army unveiled the plan at a public briefing last Wednesday night in Salt Lake City;
Business
Northrop Grumman Corporation has released the following statement on the Global Hawk Block 30 programme: "The Pentagon announced today that it is planning to cancel the Global Hawk Block 30 programme and plans to perform this mission with the U-2 aircraft. Northrop Grumman is disappointed with the Pentagon&
Military
The Pentagon plans to expand its global network of unmanned aircraft and special-operations bases in a fundamental realignment meant to project US power even as it cuts back conventional forces. The plan, to be unveiled by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Thursday and in budget documents next month, calls
Business
Aurora Flight Sciences announced today that the Swiss Department of Defence has become the first customer for the Centaur Optionally-Piloted Aircraft. armasuisse, an official procurement agency of the Swiss Department of Defence with its own Flight Test Center, will use the Centaur as a flying test bed for new
A national research team led by the University of Colorado Boulder is embarking on a two-year, multi-pronged effort to better understand the impacts of environmental factors associated with the continuing decline of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean. The team will use tools ranging from unmanned aircraft and
Commercial
The German Parliament is about to approve a new law to include unmanned aircraft in air traffic laws. The police already have unmanned aircraft, which they use to monitor demonstrations, for example. They were used for the first time about a year ago during protests against a nuclear waste transport
Testing
Discovery Channel attended a first test by Microflown AVISA, and the MicroAerialVehicle Lab from TU Delft, conducted at Vredepeel airbase. A Skywalker unmanned aircraft was equipped with both a fish eye camera and an Acoustic Vector Sensor. The AVS detected blasts on the ground, providing the acoustic directional information to
Business
The Pentagon’s proposed fiscal 2013 budget includes about $1.2 billion to buy three additional advanced versions of Northrop Grumman Corp.’s Global Hawk, according to a U.S. government official. The Pentagon also proposes to continue an $11 billion Navy programme to buy 68 of the Block 30s
VTOL
Concept: AAI, via Mike Hirschberg AAI Corp. is proposing a new vertical-takeoff-and-landing (VTOL) design for the U.S. Navy’s medium-range maritime unmanned aerial system (MRMUAS) requirement. The Shadow Knight is based on the slowed-rotor/compound (SR/C) concept licensed from Carter Aviation Technologies, but
Commercial
The NYPD could be exploring plans to use unmanned aircraft as a law enforcement tool in New York City to keep an eye on city parks and streets. In a recent email obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, an NYPD Detective in the Counterterrorism Unit asks the Federal Aviation
Military
Officials at the Hancock Field Air National Guard Base in DeWitt are reacting to a recent Air Force study that showed that about one third of active duty RPA pilots reported symptoms of burnout, and are taking the necessary steps to address the issue, including the creation of a health
Data Links & Communications
Pentek, Inc., introduced the first member of its high-performance Onyx family – the Model 71760. The 4-channel, 200 MHz A/D XMC module is based on the Xilinx Virtex-7 FPGA family. Pentek’s Onyx modules use the same modular I/O interfaces as the popular Virtex-6 FPGA