Aurora Flight Sciences announced that a subscale vehicle demonstrator (SVD) of its LightningStrike, Vertical Take-off and Landing Experimental Plane (VTOL x-plane) for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was successfully flown at a U.S. military facility.
Category Archives: Applications & Testing & Experience
NASA Preparing for Fourth Series of Flight Tests
NASA and its partners, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc., Honeywell International and the RTCA Special Committee (SC)-228, are validating and advancing technologies that will assist the Federal Aviation Administration as they develop the regulations to allow integration of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) into the National Airspace System (NAS).
US Navy’s Solar Drone Lands on Water
Unlike most quadcopters, the Aqua-Quad doesn’t take off from solid ground. Dr. Kevin Jones and his team from the Naval Postgraduate School developed it to fly straight up from the ocean or any body of water. And it can land back on water after it has fulfilled its mission, staying on or under the surface until it’s deployed again. Continue reading
BlueBird’s ThunderB Performs 25.5h Test Flight
BlueBird’s ThunderB tactical unmanned air vehicle performed a record 25.5h flight on 17 March, as part of a demonstration for an undisclosed customer.
Droneboarding – Snowboarder Towed by a Drone
Aerones, an unmanned aerial vehicle developer from Latvia has invented a new sport by towing snowboarder with a drone -enter the world of droneboarding. Continue reading
Northrop Demonstrates Global Hawk Payload Adapter
Two flights in February with a Senior Year Electro-Optical Reconnaissance System (SYERS)-2 intelligence gathering sensor strapped to a Block 30 Global Hawk were the first demonstrations by Northrop Grumman of its Universal Payload Adapter – a move toward creating one fleet of the unmanned aircraft to carry any sensor the US Air Force needs.
UAS Learn to Navigate Forest Trails in Switzerland
In Switzerland emergency centres respond to about 1,000 to calls about hikers lost or injured in the forests annually, according to the University of Zurich. But research the university has completed, in collaboration with Università della Svizzera italiana and the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland, may help speed up the search and rescue process.
Autonomous Cloud Seeding Aircraft Successfully Tested in Nevada
A team of Nevada scientists and unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) engineers have successfully flight tested the first-ever autonomous cloud seeding aircraft platform.