News & PR

Fox News: New Drones Mimic Nature

ABC News Gets An Exclusive Look At An Aircraft That Could Revolutionize Surveillance
Eye in the Sky: Pentagon Tests New Spy Plane

ABC News Gets an Exclusive Look at an Aircraft That Could Revolutionize Surveillance

High over the Mojave desert, the Pentagon has been quietly testing a new generation of unmanned plane that flies higher, soars longer and runs greener than anything in the Pentagon's arsenal.

"This will really change the way we think about aviation," Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Zachary Lemnios told ABC News. "And it's going to open up an entirely new future."

LA Times: New Generation of Unmanned Spy Planes Is Being Tested
An experimental spy plane with a wingspan almost the size of a Boeing 747's took to the skies over the Mojave Desert last week in a secret test flight that may herald a new era in modern warfare with robotic planes flying higher, faster and with more firepower.

The massive Global Observer built by AeroVironment Inc. of Monrovia is capable of flying for days at a stratosphere-skimming 65,000 feet, out of range of most antiaircraft missiles. The plane is built to survey 280,000 square miles — an area larger than Afghanistan — at a single glance. That would give the Pentagon an "unblinking eye" over the war zone and offer a cheaper and more effective alternative to spy satellites watching from outer space.
Global Observer, AeroVironment’s Extreme Endurance Unmanned Aircraft System, Achieves Historic First

Key Milestone Achieved for System Designed to Provide Persistent Communications and Surveillance at 20% of the Cost of Existing Solutions.

MONROVIA, Calif., Jan. 11, 2011—AeroVironment, Inc. (AV) (NASDAQ:AVAV) today announced that the Global Observer™ unmanned aircraft system has successfully completed its historic first flight powered by the aircraft’s hydrogen-fueled propulsion system at Edwards Air Force Base (EAFB) in California.  This milestone marks the beginning of high altitude, long endurance flight testing for the demonstration and operational utility phase of the Joint Capability Technology Demonstration (JCTD) program.

Hybrid Hydrogen Power For A New Satellite Alternative
A new and promising "eye in the sky" inches closer to reality with successful testing of AeroVironment Inc.'s Global Observer high-altitude unmanned aircraft, designed to loiter above an area for up to a week at a time. On Oct. 26 the company said the 70-foot, propeller-driven aircraft, with a wingspan of 175 feet, had completed low-altitude airworthiness tests under battery power at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

Over the next six months, the plane's actual powerplant will be used in further flight-testing. It's a liquid-hydrogen-fueled internal combustion engine driving a generator that produces electricity to turn the four props. We do live in the age of hybrids, after all.
Aviation Week: Drone-Specific Technologies Emerge
An underlying theme of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) show, which took place here in August, is the advance of unmanned vehicle technology—i.e., the research, development, application and deployment of technologies specifically for unmanned systems, rather than the creation of unmanned systems based on existing airplane, ground or sea technology.
AV’s Global Observer Stratospheric Unmanned Aircraft System Completes Initial Flight Testing

AeroVironment’s Global Observer Stratospheric Unmanned Aircraft System
Completes Initial Flight Testing

Demonstration Program Proceeding Toward Hydrogen-Fueled Flight Test Phase

WASHINGTON, at AUSA, Oct. 25, 2010—AeroVironment, Inc. (AV) (NASDAQ:AVAV) today announced that the first aircraft developed under the Global Observer™ Joint Capability Technology Demonstration (JCTD) program has successfully completed initial flight testing consisting of multiple low-altitude flights at Edwards Air Force Base (EAFB) in California.  This initial flight test phase of the demonstration program employed batteries to power the hybrid-electric aircraft and to approximate full aircraft weight and center of gravity for flight control, performance and responsiveness evaluation.