The U.S. Navy has unveiled a five-year, $100 million programme to create unmanned helicopters capable of resupplying troops and rescuing injured soldiers from the battlefield. Continue reading
UK Team To Train on Triton
Britain’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) is dispatching a team to train on Northrop Grumman’s MQ-4C Triton UAS in the run-up to a possible decision next year on whether to re-establish a maritime patrol capability. Responding to a parliamentary question April 3, the government said that four personnel are “scheduled to train on the MQ-4C Triton during June and August, 2014.”
New Lycoming Multi-Fuel Engine Soars Past 10,000 Flight Hours
AAI Unmanned Aircraft Systems, an operating unit of Textron Systems, and Lycoming Engines, a division of Avco Corporation, announced today that Lycoming’s new EL-005 multi-fuel engine has surpassed 10,000 deployed flight hours with the Aerosonde Small Unmanned Aircraft System (sUAS) in service of U.S. Department of Defense customers in Afghanistan. Continue reading
French Unit May Test Watchkeepeer in Afghanistan
Great Britain plans to send the Watchkeeper to Afghanistan this year, possibly to serve with a French Army unit working with the British Army team flying the tactical UAS, a British officer said on April 3 at a high-level defence conference in Paris by the Franco-British Council. Continue reading
US Navy Orders Five MQ-8C Fire Scouts for $44M
Northrop Grumman Corp. will build five long-range unmanned helicopters for operation from destroyers and other surface warships under terms of a $43.8 million U.S. Navy contract announced last week.
Flight of the Lady Hawk Breaks Records
In recognition of Women’s History Month, members of the 69th Reconnaissance Group decided to break a record. Three of them, in fact. On March 29, an RQ-4 Global Hawk aircraft belonging to the 348th Reconnaissance Squadron landed after being aloft for 34.3 hours, beating the previous Global Hawk endurance flight record of 33.2 hours, and consequently the longest flight without air refueling on record for any military aircraft. Additionally, the flight was accomplished with an all-female flight and support crew, with more than 50 women working together to accomplish the mission, dubbed “Flight of the Lady Hawk.” Continue reading
RQ-7 Shadow Crashes Near Fort Indiantown Gap
Military officials say an unmanned aircraft crashed near a central Pennsylvania school and a hotel. Department of Military and Veterans Affairs spokeswoman Joan Nissley said no one was injured when the RQ-7 Shadow crashed in Lebanon County around 3:30 p.m. Thursday and was run over by a civilian vehicle. Continue reading
Researchers use UAS for Fish Population Surveys
Off the coast of Georgia, researchers and pilots from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently tested the ability of a small unmanned aircraft to conduct fish population surveys. Continue reading