Military
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA‑ASI), has announced that its Type-Certifiable Predator B (TCPB) variant completed its first flight test at the company’s Gray Butte Flight Operations Facility near Palmdale, Calif., on November 17th. “The first flight of our Certifiable Predator-B aircraft is a major milestone in our
Military
What began in 2003 as the “deep black program” under the project name “Barracuda” was completed in December 2015 as the Agile UAV in NCE. The unmanned air vehicle platform was initially designed to test new technological developments with just a small number of flight trials. Following an 18-year utilisation
Testing
Schiebel and Israel Aerospace Industries’ Elta subsidiary are performing demonstrations of the former’s Camcopter S-100 unmanned air vehicle equipped with the ELK-7065 3D HF communications intelligence (COMINT) payload. According to Igo Licht, Elta’s vice-president of marketing and sales, the payload enables quick detection and identification of high frequency
Testing
An email chain shows that Amazon has been testing drones in the UK for longer than initially thought. Correspondence between Amazon and the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), which regulates drone flying in the UK, shows that Amazon has been testing drones in UK airspace since summer 2015. It was previously
Testing
Rustom-II, India's indigenously developed long-endurance combat-capable drone, has successfully completed its maiden-flight, giving a boost to Indias development programme for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV). The DRDO successfully carried out the maiden-flight of TAPAS 201 (RUSTOM II), a Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) UAV. It has an endurance of
Testing
Tern, a joint program between DARPA and the U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Research (ONR), seeks to greatly increase the effectiveness of forward-deployed small-deck ships such as destroyers and frigates by enabling them to serve as mobile launch and recovery sites for specially designed unmanned air systems (UASs)
Transport
Flirtey and Domino's Pizza Enterprises Ltd (Domino's) began autonomous delivery of pizzas from Domino's stores to select customer homes on November 15 The deliveries were conducted in New Zealand as part of Flirtey and Domino's Pizza Enterprises ongoing drone delivery testing. Currently
Testing
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. has announced the successful first flight of its new Avenger Extended Range (ER) aircraft, an extended range version of its multi-mission jet-powered Predator C Avenger which has accumulated over 13,000 flight hours to date. The flight occurred on October 27th at the company’s
Testing
Russian drone pilots may soon get a revolutionary virtual reality helmet to pilot unmanned aircraft and get an HD view of terrain and enemy targets. The new feature allows for better situation awareness while flying combat missions, developers say.The new combat helmet, codenamed ‘Svarog,’ is the first-ever virtual-reality helmet
Testing
The Maneuver Battle Lab hosted the Technical Cooperation Program for a week of testing unmanned aircraft systems at the McKenna Urban Operations Complex Oct. 17-21. Specialists from Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia also participated in the weeklong testing. Keith Singleton, the chief of the unmanned systems team at the
Testing
Launch an unmanned SBXC sailplane into the air with a catapult and it glides lazily down again in about three minutes. But when the sailplane is equipped with software to find plumes of warm air rising from the ground, known as thermals, it can ride them upward and extend its
Testing
While manned aircraft have used onboard radar for decades, the size and cost of the equipment has limited its use primarily to large, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). Lei Shi, founder of UAVradars in Lawrence, Kansas, is trying to change this. His company—a spinoff from research conducted for NASA at