Testing
The RQ-7B Shadow Unmanned Aircraft System conducted its first-ever test flight under the direction of NAWC Aircraft Division’s UAS Test Directorate at Webster Field, Md., June 21. "Having a RQ-7B at the UAS Test Directorate allows for the test and evaluation of system enhancements and
Payloads
Deposition Sciences, Inc., manufacturer of durable thin film optical coatings, announces the design of a wide-angle broadband anti-reflection (BBAR) coating for gimbal windows and detector assemblies. The highly specialized coatings address the needs of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) for a highly durable, angle-insensitive (FOV 0-30 degrees)
Electronic Sub-Systems
EADS Astrium has deployed a software system for measuring antenna radio frequencies that utilises OpenViz data visualization software from Advanced Visual Systems. The system, known as EADS Astrium Advanced Antenna Measurement Software (AAMS), allows fully automated testing of antenna systems installed in ground vehicles, aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, missiles and
Military
The US Army expects to issue a "request for information" imminently for a vertical-takeoff and landing (VTOL) unmanned aircraft, Army officials said recently.As an interim step before it decides to buy a new aircraft, the Army is experimenting with A-160 Hummingbirds, 35-feet long unmanned
Commercial
Raytheon Company has delivered the first of three SeaVue expanded mission capability radars to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection in the record time of just six months. This radar will be installed on U.S. Customs and Border Protection's second Guardian unmanned aircraft system, a maritime
Military
Air Force officials have released the criteria for basing of the regular Air Force MQ-1/9 remote split operations ground control stations. The basing criteria, announced on June 22, were approved by the secretary and chief of staff of the Air Force and include factors such as mission requirements,
Testing
The world imagined in a 1960 Science-Fiction TV Series took a step closer to reality with the announcment by Moller International, Inc., the developer of the Rotapower line of rotary engines and the Aerobot line of Unmanned Aircraft Systems, that the Federal Aviation Administration has accepted its application for
Propulsion
Austrian firm IAT21 (the Austrian Innovative Aeronautical Technology Research Company) describes its free-floating UAS project D-Dalus as, "a totally new form of airborne auto-motion". It hovers and flies without wings or rotors. It uses four, mechanically-linked turbines to provide propulsion. They're all
Propulsion
At Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, two miles from the cow pasture where the Wright Brothers learned to fly the first airplanes, military researchers are at work on another revolution in the air: shrinking unmanned drones, the kind that fire missiles into Pakistan and spy on insurgents in Afghanistan, to
Military
Northrop Grumman is pitching its MQ-4C Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) unmanned aircraft system to the Indian navy. Earlier this year the company responded to an Indian request for information for a high-altitude, long-endurance UAS issued in October 2010, said an industry source. In US Navy service
Testing
A decade-long investment in the unmanned, long-endurance A160 Hummingbird helicopter is set to enter a final proving phase at the end of the month. Boeing plans to deliver the first of 20 new production aircraft assembled in Mesa, Arizona by the end of June to a flight-test
Testing
Sikorsky hopes to demonstrate an optionally piloted resupply mission using a fly-by-wire-equipped UH-60M Black Hawk utility helicopter by the end of this year. Jeff Pino, president of the Connecticut-based company, said the Sikorsky-built automatic flight-control augmentation system, which is packaged in an electronics