New Military Drone Passes Vertical Takeoff Test

Friday, July 24, 2009

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Aurora Flight Sciences

The Excalibur half-scale model in a successful flight test.

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It flies like a butterfly, and boy, will it sting a lot more than a bee.

Aurora Flight Sciences recently tested a half-scale model of its new Excalibur unmanned aerial vehicle, or "drone" to the rest of us.

Unlike the military's Predator and Reaper drones currently in use along the Afghan-Pakistani border, the Excalibur won't need a runway.

That's because it's a vertical-takeoff-and-landing (VTOL) aircraft. Like a Harrier jet, it rises straight up off the ground before using forward thrust like a regular jet.

Three horizontally mounted propellers help a tilting turbojet push the craft up, and are then stowed away as the jet drops into flight position.

The model tested on June 24 is only 13 feet long with a 10-foot wingspan, but Aurora hopes the successful flight test will help it secure additional Pentagon funding for a full-scale version with roughly twice the dimensions.

The final version should be able to cruise along at 460 mph, near the speed of sound, and carry four Hellfire missiles.

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By comparison, the Predator maxes out at 135 mph and carries two Hellfires. The Reaper does about 300 mph, but can carry up to 14 Hellfires, or a combination of Hellfires and laser-guided bombs.

• Click here to watch the flight-test video.

• Click here for the Excalibur page on the Aurora Web site.

• Click here for a report on the flight test in Aviation Week.