Retour aux nouvelles

17 juillet 2018 | International, Aérospatial

Helicopter drone loses weight, lengthens endurance, but will the change attract customers?

By:

FARNBOROUGH, England — UMS Skeldar has launched a new version of its flagship unmanned helicopter that has a longer-endurance capability, as the company continues its aggressive campaign to promote the system for a number of ongoing international naval requirements.

The Skeldar V-200B has a five-hour endurance due to a 10-kilogram weight reduction in the aircraft, something the company claims will up its appeal because of the increased performance and reliability. The new model is now the baseline offering that UMS Skeldar will pitch to customers.

UMS Skeldar is a joint venture between Saab and UMS that formed in 2015 to primarily promote the V-200, a UAV that had previously struggled to secure customers despite years of development and marketing by Saab.

“It [the V-200B] is almost a completely new aircraft — a new build since the Saab days,” David Willems, head of business development at the company, told Defense News.

The "B" model is the result of work carried out under the partnership, he added, and features new GPS antennas and software in addition to the weight decrease, as well as better fuel consumption due to engine modifications.

Endurance can be increased, or an extra 10 kilograms of payload can be carried by Skeldar, Willems said.

Notably, the way the V-200B has been developed will allow for the drone's industrialization, moving from one-off manufacture, as was the case with the previous variant, to serial production.

The Asia-Pacific region is the most active market for Skeldar, Willems says. The company is seeing potential in South Korea, and it has been specifically targeting Australia for some time now, where it is expanding its industrial base to potentially support work transfer.

“It is a very interesting time there, and we are building a small Australia ecosystem,” he said.

Australia is acquiring a number of types of unmanned systems under ongoing programs, seeking systems such as ship-based UAVs under its Project Sea 129 Phase 5 effort, supporting its aim to operate a comprehensive fleet of unmanned aircraft that includes the Insitu ScanEagle and Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton.

Skeldar is most often pitched against Schiebel's unmanned Camcopter helo, a system that has seen more commercial success in both the military and civil markets, although UMS Skeldar has been demonstrably active in marketing its system since the joint venture was formed.

A heavy-fuel variant of Camcopter has been undergoing trials in Australia under work that will act as risk-reduction efforts for the Project Sea 129 Phase 5 program.

UMS is also active in Germany where it is teaming with ESG to pitch to the Navy for similar requirements to Australia. The company has delivered Skeldar to Indonesia, which has used it to assess operating a UAV of this type, although little news on the outcome of that work has been revealed by either the Indonesian government or the company.

https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/farnborough/2018/07/16/helicopter-drone-loses-weight-lengthens-endurance-but-will-the-change-attract-customers/

Sur le même sujet

  • France’s Armée De L’ Air Receives First KC-130J Super Hercules Aerial Refueler

    20 septembre 2019 | International, Aérospatial

    France’s Armée De L’ Air Receives First KC-130J Super Hercules Aerial Refueler

    ORLÉANS, France, September 19, 2019 – Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) delivered the first of two KC-130J Super Hercules aerial refuelers to representatives from France's Armée de l'Air's 62st Transport Wing at Orléans-Bricy Air Base today. France will receive a total of four Super Hercules aircraft — two C-130J-30 combat delivery airlifters and two KC-130J aerial refuelers — through a Foreign Military Sale with the U.S. government. The two C-130J-30 airlifters were delivered in 2017 and 2018, and a second KC-130J will deliver in 2020. All of these Super Hercules are operated in conjunction with France's existing C-130H fleet. “The KC-130J provides Armée de l'Air crews with a proven solution that delivers much-needed fuel in any environment, at any time,” said Rod McLean, vice president and general manager, Air Mobility & Maritime Missions at Lockheed Martin. “In choosing to operate both the C-130J-30 and the KC-130J, France has built a diverse airlift fleet that expands both the capabilities and global reach of the French Armed Forces.” France is the 17th country to choose the C-130J for its airlift needs. The C-130J Super Hercules is the most advanced tactical airlifter in operation today, offering superior performance and enhanced capabilities with the range and versatility for every theater of operations and evolving requirements. As the preeminent tactical aerial refueling tanker, the KC-130J is a battle-tested solution that takes full advantage of the tremendous technological and performance improvements inherent in the C-130J Super Hercules aircraft. A true force multiplier, the KC-130J refuels both fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft as well as conducts rapid ground refueling. With this delivery, France joins a global community of KC-130J operators. In 2018, Germany announced the acquisition of a C-130J-30/KC-130J fleet, to be operated in partnership with France — making this first such operator relationship in C-130J history. www.lockheedmartin.com/c130.

  • Turkish firm says it has made a supersonic target drone

    30 mars 2022 | International, Aérospatial

    Turkish firm says it has made a supersonic target drone

    The 3-meter-long drone, now undergoing flight testing, features a mini-turbojet engine that helps it fly at least as fast as Mach 1.

  • The Air Force sends good guys in to hack its cloud

    8 août 2019 | International, Sécurité

    The Air Force sends good guys in to hack its cloud

    By: Andrew Eversden The Air Force invited ethical hackers into its IT networks again this spring, allowing good guys the chance to infiltrate its enterprise-wide Air Force Common Computing Environment in search of vulnerabilities, the white hat hacking company Bugcrowd announced Aug. 6. The bug bounty program, done in a partnership with Bugcrowd and the Air Force's CCE program office, found 54 vulnerabilities. Bug bounties work under the assumption that the customer, in this case the Air Force, will now close the loopholes the hackers found, making the system more secure. The CCE cloud uses Amazon Web Services and Microsoft's Azure commercial cloud. The service plans to migrate more than 100 applications to that cloud environment, Bugcrowd executives said. The largest payout from the bug bounty totaled $20,000. The event ran from March 18 to June 21 at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts. Casey Ellis, Bugcrowd founder and CTO, said it was the first time Bugcrowd has worked with the Air Force. The Air Force has completed several other white hat hacking events with the firm HackerOne. Ellis said that moving to the cloud from on-premise environment represents a “paradigm shift” for many organizations. Penetration testing is an important part of keeping that environment secure, he said. Bugcrowd conducted such tests in six phases: source code analysis, AWS environment testing, Azure environment testing, black box network authentication assessment, social engineering engagement and Air Force portal testing. Bugcrowd declined to discuss how many vulnerabilities were found throughout each stage of the process. According to a news release from the Air Force from April, the CCE currently houses 21 Air Force applications and "has room for countess more.” The computing environment allows the Air Force to have a cloud to host its applications that reside on its Global Combat Support System, which is a centralized, cohesive enterprise resource planning system. The Air Force said in the April release that each migration costs $446,000 and that the service has spent more than $136 million on the program since 2016. https://www.fifthdomain.com/dod/air-force/2019/08/06/the-air-force-sends-good-guys-in-to-hack-its-cloud/

Toutes les nouvelles