Up and Soaring - UAS

Northrop Grumman, U.S. Navy Fly Next-Gen Fire Scout

Northrop Grumman Corp. and the U.S. Navy successfully completed the first flight of the next-generation MQ-8C Fire Scout unmanned helicopter at Naval Base Ventura County, Point Mugu, Calif., at the end of October.

The MQ-8C, operated by a ground-based Navy/Northrop Grumman flight test team, took off and flew for 7 minutes in restricted airspace to validate the autonomous control systems. A second flight of 9 minutes was also flown in a pattern around the airfield, reaching an altitude of 500ft.

The latest Fire Scout is designed with additional fuel tanks and an upgraded engine to fly 12 hours – twice as long as the current MQ-8B variant – and carry three times the payload: up to 2,600 lb.

The MQ-8C Fire Scout industry team includes Bell Helicopter, Rolls-Royce, Summit Aviation, Cubic Corp., General Electric Aviation, Sierra Nevada Corp., and Honeywell. Production of the MQ-8C is being completed at the Northrop Grumman Unmanned Systems Center in Moss Point, Miss.

www.northropgrumman.com

Silent Guardian Enters Detailed Design Phase

Officials from Denver, Colo.-based Bye Aerospace Inc. say the company’s solar-electric hybrid unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) project, Silent Guardian, has transitioned into the detailed design phase.

Silent Guardian is configured to provide high-altitude and long-range for persistent intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) to support defense and security requirements.

Potential mission applications intended for the UAV include border patrol and homeland security, coast guard search and rescue, and visual and thermal reconnaissance. Potential civil applications include maritime anti-piracy patrol, wildlife and natural resource monitoring, disaster relief and communications restoration, forest fire detection, weather monitoring, and aerial photography.

www.byeaerospace.com

UAS Test Center Approved

The Texas A&M System Board of Regents has approved the establishment of the Lone Star Unmanned Aircraft Systems Center of Excellence and Innovation (LSUASC) as a joint Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi and Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) center.

The LSUASC, to be headquartered in Corpus Christi, Texas, will function in the general areas of research, development, testing, and training to support safely integrating unmanned aircraft into the national airspace.

A&M-Corpus Christi has an established UAS program, including extensive airspace authorized by the FAA for UAS operations. The university recently established a UAS command and control center that will manage 11 Texas test ranges.

www.tamucc.edu

Okla. Using UAVs for Livestock and Wildlife Observation

Oklahoma State University graduate students are using a class competition to develop unmanned aircraft systems for livestock and wildlife observation. Cattle monitoring is a vital, yet time-consuming task for cattle producers, and an airborne surveillance system would benefit a rancher’s ability to locate missing cattle and to identify other environmental conditions impacting herd health and safety. The unmanned aircraft also will be evaluated for their ability to counter illicit wildlife poaching and trafficking. The students will demonstrate their locating systems in a fly-off at the end of 2013.

www.okstate.edu

Registration Opens for 2014 UAS NASA-DPI Challenge

NASA and Development Projects Inc. (DPI) of Dayton, Ohio, have opened registration for the 2014 Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Airspace Operations Challenge. The $500,000 prize competition is scheduled for April 28 – May 7, 2014 at the Ohio/Indiana Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Center & Test Complex at Camp Atterbury in Indiana.

NASA is providing the prize money to the winning team as part of the agency's Centennial Challenges competitions, which seek inventive solutions to problems of interest to the agency and the nation. Prizes are awarded only after solutions are successfully demonstrated.

The competition will require participants to demonstrate basic airmanship and air vehicle capabilities through a series of ground and flight events intended to measure key performance capabilities ensuring that air vehicles are safe, sustainable, and practical.

www.uasaoc.org