Military
Britain and France have launched a proposal to design and build the next generation of unmanned military attack aircraft worth £600 million (€710 million, $952 million). British and French forces want a more advanced aircraft than the General Atomics Reaper currently in service with the Royal Air Force. The new
Testing
Apache helicopter pilots will soon be able to control Grey Eagle UAS directly from the cockpit. The Grey Eagle-Apache command system is undergoing testing and is expected to be ready for demonstration at the Dugway Proving Ground test centre in Utah by September. Tim Owings, the civilian deputy head
Commercial
Rotomotion has announced what it claims to be “the smallest, most affordable professional short endurance electric Vertical Take Off and Land Unmanned Aerial System (VTOL UAS) in the industry” - the SR5 Parvus. The company describes the SR5 as “the most advanced professional VTOL UAS in its weight and payload class
Military
Turkey’s first locally developed Medium-Altitude, Long-Endurance (MALE) UAS, the TAI ‘Anka’, first unveiled in July 2010, made its first test flight at the end of the year. The Anka can fly at an altitude of 30,000 feet for 24 hours, and has a cruising speed of
Events
Yesterday, 12 January 2011, the UVS International General Assembly, which was held in Paris, France, unanimously voted 2 new members and 2 new observers onto its Board of Directors: Gilles Fartek , Integra, Denmark (formerly an observer, now a full member)Claus Frey , EADS Deutschland, Cassidian, Germany (observer)Abdoulaye N’Diaye
Propulsion
An experimental UAS with a wingspan almost the size of a Boeing 747 took to the skies over the Mojave Desert last week in a test flight from Edwards Air Force Base, reports the LA Times. On Thursday, the Global Observer performed its first test demonstrating its ability to use
Events
Avionics Magazine is hosting a Webinar entitled: UAS Civil Airspace Integration: Progress and Challenges on Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2011, from Noon to 1 p.m. ET. Among the discussion points: * What is the status of UAS integration in civil airspace? * What is the FAA strategy for introducing UAS in the
Military
The VT Group has announced that Daniel Bertram has joined the organization as president of the Unmanned Systems line of business and member of the Senior Leadership Team. In this role, he will have responsibility for the vertical and horizontal expansion of the group’s US services offering worldwide. VT
Propulsion
A paper proposing a hybrid energy storage system to solve the energy issues of long endurance UAS, presented at the IECON 2010 - the 36th Annual Conference on IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, has just been published at the IEEE Digital Library. It is available online to members and subscribers. The paper
Commercial
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Building and Fire Research Laboratory Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) Program, in Gaithersburg, MD, has just awarded a contract worth $927,500 to the MLB Company of Mountain View, California for five Unmanned Aerial Systems to collect data characterizing the location of a
Commercial
The El Dorado Times in Kansas reports that the FAA has granted two Certificates of Authorization (COA) to the City of El Dorado to fly Unmanned Aircraft at El Dorado Municipal Captain Jack Thomas Memorial Airport for the next 12 months. The COAs are renewable and are granted by the
Military
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ plan to trim around $100 billion from Pentagon accounts over the next five years — the details of which he announced today — is being billed as a budget cut. Actually, Gates’ latest budget exercise represents a net boost for some projects. The Navy will now get