Bell APT 70 achieves BVLOS flight

On Jan. 16, 2020, Bell Flight’s Autonomous Pod Transport (APT) 70 unmanned aerial system flew its first beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) flight covering 10 miles at Choctaw Nation test site under the Federal Aviation Administration’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration Pilot Program (UASIPP).

The vehicle also completed an 18-mile flight with 60 lb of payload at Bell’s testing site near Fort Worth, Texas.

To date, the APT 70 flight test program has completed more than 120 flights. The program will continue to test vehicle endurance, range capabilities, and expand mission sets.

“Our partnership with Choctaw under the UASIPP has allowed us to push the boundaries on our eVTOL technology,” says John Wittmaak, program manager, UAS.

Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma (CNO) and Bell Textron Inc. officials announced in December 2019 an agreement to add Bell to the CNO UASIPP team and begin testing Bell UAS on CNO-owned property in rural southeastern Oklahoma. CNO is one of nine UASIPP sites selected in May 2018.

Future missions for the CNO UASIPP team include advanced drone operations for agriculture, public safety, infrastructure inspection, safe operations over people, and weather-related missions.

BlueBird Aero Systems wins 150+ UAS order

Small, tactical unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) provider BlueBird Aero Systems has received an order from a European customer for more than 150 vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) UAS.

The WanderB-VTOL mini UAS and ThunderB-VTOL tactical UAS will be operated by infantry soldiers, armored units, artillery corps, and special forces. The contract marks the company’s largest sale of tactical VTOL UAS.

BlueBird’s UAS systems, operational in Israel and globally since 2006, have performed more than 52,000 operational sorties and open area support, as well as urban scenarios and tactical mapping on demand for military, security, disaster management, law enforcement, search and rescue, and commercial applications.