miércoles, 14 de julio de 2010 Most ISR flights are presently conducted by older aircraft with flight crews or by unmanned aircraft systems (UASs). The UAS is typically used when the flight mission is too hazardous for humans. Operating a UAS in the controlled airspace of most countries presents significant challenges, however. US airspace restricts unmanned operations to very limited time and space constraints that are presently reserved for defense applications. The UAS has to be ferried to its deployment site on board other aircraft..

lunes, 30 de agosto de 2010 The joint Department of Defense, NASA and AV team successfully performed the tests at the Flight Loads Laboratory located at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base (EAFB) in California. The team designed and built a specialized test fixture to apply loads to the modular, all-composite 175-foot Global Observer wing. The test validates the quality of AV's design, its analysis of flexible and lightweight structures and the resulting design tradeoffs made to maximize wing strength...

viernes, 03 de septiembre de 2010 Construction of the first BAMS UAS aircraft introduces another variant of Northrop Grumman's RQ-4 Global Hawk High Altitude, Long Endurance (HALE) unmanned aircraft system platform. "We are no longer a paper tiger as we begin construction on the jig load today," said Capt. Bob Dishman, BAMS UAS program manager, during the event. "As we continue with the airframe critical design review, we will be focusing on the production of this hardware. Our goal is to continue making early design decisio

viernes, 27 de agosto de 2010 The trials took place in France and in a desert environment. Preceding the last series of flights in Ile du Levant, the third phase was dedicated to VTOL missions under hot and dry desert conditions. Impressive performance characteristics of the CAMCOPTER® S-100 permitted successful completion of this phase, both under the influence of inclement weather and the extreme heat. The aim of the final series of trials on the French Levant island was to demonstrate the suitability and versatility of a VTOL UAV...

viernes, 23 de julio de 2010 Zephyr was launched on 09 July and is currently still flying above the US Army's Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona. Today Zephyr will have been aloft for 14 nights continuously, achieving the objective of the trial and setting a number of performance and altitude records. At this point QinetiQ's Zephyr team in Yuma will bring the aircraft back to earth. An official from the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI) (http://www.fai.org/), the world air sports federation, has been monitoring progress at the.