Aviation Week reports that DARPA and Sikorsky “have conducted the first fully autonomous flights of a UH-60 Black Hawk with no one on board the helicopter. The flights involved a modified S-70A optionally piloted vehicle (OPV) testbed fitted with Sikorsky’s Matrix autonomy system under DARPA’s Alias program.”
Full Story (Aviation Week)
Tag: Autonomous Flight
EHang Receives First Order for VT-30 UAV
Aviation International News reports that EHang “has received the first order for its VT-30 Autonomous Aerial Vehicle, with Japan’s Okayama Kurashiki Mizushima Aero & Space Industry Cluster Study Group (MASC) committing to exploring use cases for the two-seat eVTOL aircraft, as well as the Chinese manufacturer’s EH216 model.”
Full Story (Aviation International News)
US Air Force to Field Loyal Wingman UAVs
FlightGlobal reports that the US Air Force “is ready to move beyond experimentation with unmanned combat aircraft and toward acquiring and fielding the next-generation unmanned air vehicles (UAVs).” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said, “We are going to take a period of time to sort all that out and then we are going to get onto something that we are going to field. It’s a commitment to going forward in a direction that we have been thinking about and experimenting with but haven’t committed to before. So, that’s a major change actually.”
Full Story (FlightGlobal)
Second Loyal Wingman UAV Performs Flight Tests
Aviation Week reports that a second Boeing Airpower Teaming System (ATS), “better known as the Loyal Wingman, has commenced flight tests at Australia’s Woomera Range Complex, including the raising and lower of the undercarriage.” Both UAVs “are performing separate flight tests.”
Full Story (Aviation Week)