Swift’s SULE sets altitude benchmark

Swift Engineering exceeded the existing altitude mark for its Swift Ultra Long Endurance (SULE) uncrewed aircraft system (UAS) aircraft, reaching 55,904ft in a 24-hour flight that departed and landed from Spaceport America in New Mexico. The flight more than doubled the previous altitude achieved of 25,000ft.

With a 72ft wingspan and 15 lb payload capacity, the solar-powered SULE is designed to stay airborne for multiple weeks at a time. Applications include communications relay; internet/comms in underserved or remote areas; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) needs; forest fire monitoring; traffic management; disaster relief; agriculture; and change detection.

Swift Engineering is participating in a two-year program with NASA focused on the development of UAS that can achieve extended endurance with decreased cost and increased data capture capabilities. The program will include multiple on-the-ground tests of systems and subsystems as well as flights of 24 hours, 48 hours, and seven days.

Other Swift UAS include the shorter range, rapidly deployable vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) Swift Crane and the longer endurance, longer range, gas-powered Swift Accipiter. https://www.swiftengineering.com

KAL, Curtiss-Wright to develop SOSA solutions for UAS

Curtiss-Wright and Korean Airlines Ltd. Co.’s (KAL) Research & Development Group – part of the Korean Air Aerospace division – will collaborate in developing Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) Technical Standard-aligned flight avionics systems for next-generation medium and large uncrewed aircraft.

KAL’s R&D Group will use Curtiss-Wright’s Fabric100 3U and 6U VPX modules to prototype and develop a demonstrator system to showcase the advanced command, control, communications, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C5ISR) capabilities SOSA brings to uncrewed aircraft.

Curtiss-Wright’s Fabric100 offers 100GbE and high-performance PCIe Gen4 interconnect speeds to support the higher data processing performance C5ISR requires. https://aerospace.koreanair.com; 
https://www.curtisswright.com; https://www.opengroup.org/sosa

Australian MQ-4C Triton program on track and preparing next aircraft for delivery

Northrop Grumman Corp. has completed testing of Australia’s third MQ-4C Triton at the company’s Palmdale, California facility. The company is preparing to ferry the aircraft, also known as AUS3, to Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, where it’ll join Australia’s second Triton for calibration testing before delivery of both aircraft to the Royal Australian Air Force.

Robust flight testing and validation of these uncrewed high- altitude, long endurance (HALE) aircraft are key milestones ahead of delivery to Australia this year. Australia’s air force is collaborating with Northrop Grumman and the U.S. Navy to field the advanced maritime intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeting (MISR&T) capability of uncrewed aircraft. https://www.northropgrumman.com