Military
The US Navy and Marine Corps’ RQ-21A Blackjack unmanned aircraft system received the official green light for operation Jan. 13, marking a major milestone for the program. Marine Corps Deputy Commandant for Aviation Lt. Gen. Jon Davis, announced the program has achieved Initial Operational Capability, which confirms that the first
Military
The US Army aviation chief, Maj. Gen. Michael Lundy, wants to spend the service’s shrunken aircraft acquisition budget — down about 40 percent over the past three years — on manned rather than unmanned aircraft. After all, this is the Army. “We’ve got a lot of unmanned stuff out there,
Military
On 30 December 2015, Urban Aeronautics’ AirMule completed its first autonomous, untethered flight at Megiddo airfield in northern Israel. Rafi Yoeli – chief executive of UrbanAero, the parent company of Tactical Robotics, which developed the vertical take-off and landing aircraft – says the test schedule in Megiddo includes plans to demonstrate the
Military
The Bundeswehr has begun negotiations with the Israelis on leasing armed Heron TP medium-range long-endurance unmanned aerial systems (UAS) to bridge the gap until it acquires a European UAS by 2025, along with France, Italy and Spain. Heron TP was chosen in favour of the US Predator/Guardian Eagle armed
Business
Romania's army has a new quadrotor capability following the arrival of four UAV Solutions Phoenix 30 unmanned air vehicles. The aircraft were delivered via the US Foreign Military Sales programme, which also includes the company’s Dragon View combined electro-optical/infrared stabilised camera, a ground control system, spares
Military
The US Navy, which already operates the catapult-launched ScanEagle and Blackjack, is interesting in procuring more tactical small unmanned aerial systems to provide ISR in day and night operations, as well as in adverse environmental conditions. The Navy’s solicitation calls for an aircraft with a lightweight design akin to
Military
The US Army wants to convert data from multiple distributed sensors into a 3-D hologram beamed inside a cockpit. The goal is to ease the workload on Army pilots overwhelmed by flying their own aircraft while trying to operate unmanned aircraft in manned-unmanned teaming, according to the Army research solicitation.
Military
In a statement, the Indian Air Force has revealed that "a group of terrorists were detected by the aerial surveillance platforms as soon as they entered the Air Force Station at Pathankot". "The infiltrators were immediately engaged and contained within a limited area, thus preventing them from
Business
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Office of Naval Research have awarded Northrop Grumman Corporation the third phase of the Tern unmanned systems program. Phase three plans to include final design, fabrication and a full-scale, at-sea demonstration of the system. Tern seeks to develop an autonomous, unmanned,
Military
Israel Aerospace Industries‘ (IAI) Heron-1 Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) recently marked its 70,000th flight hour in Afghanistan, after less than 7 years of operation in the country. This follows Heron’s completion of 25,000 flight hours last month under German Air Force operations in Afghanistan. After successful use
VTOL
Small-deck ships such as destroyers and frigates could greatly increase their effectiveness if they had their own unmanned air systems (UAS) to provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and other capabilities at long range around the clock. Current state-of-the-art UASs, however, lack the ability to take off and land from
Military
Vietnamese television and other media reports have revealed Vietnam's largest indigenous high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to date, indicating that it will eventually perform civil and military missions over the South China Sea. Reports from 10 and 11 December 2015 state that the new HS-6L HALE