Orbital Corporation Ltd has continued to demonstrate its progress and growth in the unmanned aerial vehicle market with flight testing of its world-class propulsion systems in conjunction with customer Insitu Pacific Pty Ltd, a division of Insitu Inc. and a wholly owned subsidiary of The Boeing Company.
The program, conducted at Insitu Pacific’s testing and training facility in Queensland, represents the first time Orbital UAV’s propulsion systems have been flown in Australia and complements the Company’s existing flight testing activities in the USA.
“Our flight program with Insitu Pacific expands our capability to fast track flight hour development and validation – gathering valuable data in real world conditions,” said Todd Alder, Managing Director and CEO of Orbital UAV.
“These flights test the limits of our engines and highlight opportunities where we can continuously improve our products – increasing reliability and field serviceability to ensure we are providing propulsion systems that set the benchmark for performance,” he said.
Orbital UAV’s latest generation of engines – derivatives of the Company’s revolutionary Modular Propulsion Solution (“MPS”) – are being flown on Insitu’s ScanEagle platform.
Orbital UAV’s MPS addresses a growing need within the tactical UAV market for aircraft to have the flexibility and versatility to adapt to changing end customer requirements and for the rapid deployment of those aircraft. The modular range of propulsion systems are capable of being integrated across multiple platforms with varying payloads and capability.
The initial flight program with Insitu Pacific is targeting more than 300 hours of data and highlights the growing partnership between Orbital UAV and the Boeing subsidiary.
“Insitu Pacific has been flight testing its own unique payload designs and customer deliveries for the past 10 years,” said Andrew Duggan, Managing Director of Insitu Pacific.
“However, the activity with Orbital UAV is contributing important new performance and life-cycle data for the ScanEagle product line for Insitu globally and is supporting our continuous drive to innovate and define leading unmanned aircraft systems into the next decade,” he said.
Source: Press Release