Business
Ultra Electronics, AMI (AMI) recently delivered 45 of its ROAMIO D245XR fuel cells for use by the U.S. military in unmanned aerial systems (UAS). The contract award for this delivery is valued at more than $2 million. The ROAMIO D245XR is the most advanced power technology available today, providing
Propulsion
Boeing's unmanned aircraft, Phantom Eye, completed its first take off and landing June 1. The autonomous aircraft, with its 150-foot wingspan and powered by energy-efficient liquid hydrogen, lifted off its launch cart and climbed to an altitude of 4,080 feet into the desert sky above Edwards Air
Business
Ducted-fan VTOL unmanned aircraft have a lot to offer - the ability to take off, land and fly in confined urban spaces being one. But quiet they are not, at least those that are big enough to carry a useful payload for a useful time.Now small firm D-Star Engineering
Propulsion
L2 Aerospace and Cella Energy have teamed up to develop hydrogen storage technology for small, fuel-cell-powered unmanned aircraft systems and potentially other, larger manned and unmanned aircraft. The companies displayed a mockup of a concept design at the Farnborough International Airshow In March, Cape Canaveral, Florida-based L2 Aerospace received an
Propulsion
Lockheed Martin and LaserMotive, Inc., recently demonstrated the capabilities of an innovative laser power system to extend the Stalker UAS flight time to more than 48 hours, representing an improvement of 2,400 percent. Stalker is a small, silent UAS used by Special Operations Forces since 2006 to perform intelligence,
Propulsion
Researchers at the University of Colorado are building the smallest supersonic jet engine ever made. Weighing just 22 lbs. (10 kg) , the tiny jet will drive an unmanned aircraft faster than the speed of sound and could become a template for testing future generations of civilian and military aircraft. Source:
Propulsion
A team of engineers at Electronic Cooling Solutions worked with John Langley and engineers at Ambient Micro to build an exhaust-heat thermoelectric generator (EHTEG) that can be incorporated into a UAS design to harvest and convert waste energy into electrical power in flight. The engineers at Electronic Cooling Solutions did
VTOL
Urban Aeronautics will soon perform the first flight of an AirMule ducted fan unmanned aircraft system fitted with a double-redundant hydraulic system. The enhancement will allow for uninterrupted rotor pitch control in the event of a failure to one of the pressure supply lines. The new design underwent full power
Propulsion
Holloman Air Force Base is home to the first two new aviation gasoline trucks in Air Combat Command's inventory that were specifically designed to support the MQ-1 Predator remotely piloted aircraft. "They were uniquely designed, ordered, and built for the MQ-1 mission here," said MSgt. Jason
Propulsion
Engine manufacturer Rotax will this year begin delivering ASTM and certificated versions of a new four-stroke, four-cylinder piston 912iS engine, with monitoring capabilities typically found only in more advanced turbofan engines. The advanced technology offerings, developed for Rotax by Rockwell Collins, include an engine control unit (ECU), the functional equivalent
Propulsion
Insitu Inc. announced that its ScanEagle unmanned aircraft system (UAS) successfully completed its first hydrogen-powered fuel cell flight during a two-and-a-half-hour flight test. The hydrogen-powered fuel cell solution was implemented as a modular upgrade to the runway-independent, expeditionary Group 2 ScanEagle UAS. The collaboration between Insitu, Naval Research Laboratory (NRL)
Propulsion
In preparation for their attempt at round-the-world flight in 2014, the Solar Impulse team has announced the destination of its 2012 mission: the Kingdom of Morocco. This spring, Solar Impulse will attempt another world first by flying more than 2,500 km,(1,550 miles) without using a drop of