Tag Archives: Flight

The testing process of Bayraktar TB3, Türkiye’s new unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) capable of being deployed on aircraft carriers, continues at full speed, with manufacturer Baykar recently announcing the drone has completed its fifth flight and flew with the landing gear retracted for the first time. During its fifth …

Northwest UAV has announced that its newest heavy-fuel UAV engine, the NW-230, has achieved first flight operations with an undisclosed customer. The flight was conducted on a hybrid vertical take-off and landing (HVTOL) UAV. These successful flight operations elevate the NW-230 engine system to a Technical Readiness Level (TRL) of …

National Security Innovation Capital (NSIC), a program within the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) of the Department of Defense, has awarded a $1M contract to Parallel Flight Technologies (PFT), a California-based heavy-lift drone and hybrid propulsion technology company. This contract will support the advancement and expansion of its Long-Range Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) to …

Alaska’s leading public uncrewed aircraft program made another significant advance Friday when a drone flew from the Nenana airport and landed at Fairbanks International Airport. The flight, conducted by a University of Alaska Fairbanks research center, was the first in Alaska of a drone departing one airport and arriving at …

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) is poised to begin the flight-testing phase on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) LongShot program. Begun in 2020, General Atomics was competitively awarded a contract to develop DARPA’s concept for disruptive air combat operations through demonstration of an air-to-air weapons capable air …

SoftBank Corp. (“SoftBank”) announced that it collected the data necessary for flight verification and aircraft design as part of its development of a next-generation uncrewed aircraft system (UAS) designed for High Altitude Platform Station (HAPS) by testing a sub-scale model. A low altitude flight test for the sub-scale model, a …

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) congratulates the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) on achieving a significant milestone of surpassing 20,000 flight hours with their Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF) Unmanned Expeditionary (MUX) Medium-Altitude, High-Endurance (MALE) MQ-9A Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS). To date, GA-ASI has delivered eight MQ-9A UAS to the …

  British engineers have successfully completed a stratospheric flight trial of BAE Systems’ High Altitude Pseudo Satellite (HAPS) Uncrewed Aerial System (UAS) – PHASA-35.  Over a 24-hour period, PHASA-35 soared to more than 66,000 feet, reaching the stratosphere, before landing successfully.  The trial, completed last month in New Mexico in …

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA‑ASI) announced that its family of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), which includes the Predator®, Reaper, Gray Eagle, Avenger®, and MQ-9B SkyGuardian®/SeaGuardian® lines, has surpassed eight million flight hours. GA-ASI aircraft have completed 566,000 total missions in nearly 40 countries around the world. Adding to the …

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) conducted the first flight of its new 200-horsepower heavy fuel engine on a Gray Eagle aircraft at its El Mirage flight facility on May 9, 2023. The Heavy Fuel Engine (HFE) 2.0 is being considered by the U.S. Army to become the fleet replacement …