PAS 2025: Honeywell, Near Earth Autonomy Complete “First Autonomous Flight of Leonardo AW139 Helicopter”

Hon­ey­well and Near Earth Auton­o­my announced at this week’s Paris Air­show (PAS), they have suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed the first autonomous test flight of a Leonar­do AW139 heli­copter, mark­ing a major mile­stone in sup­port of the U.S Marine Corps Aer­i­al Logis­tics Con­nec­tor (ALC) pro­gram, reports a press release.

This flight demon­strates the fea­si­bil­i­ty of uncrewed, autonomous air­craft capa­ble of oper­at­ing with­out an onboard pilot or remote oper­a­tor. 

The test flight took place in Phoenix, Ari­zona last month and marks an impor­tant step in efforts to deliv­er scal­able, autonomous logis­tics sup­port to the Unit­ed States Marine Corps (USMC). 

For the first time, key autopi­lot modes of the AW139 were con­trolled direct­ly by Near Earth’s onboard auton­o­my soft­ware with­out pilot input, show­cas­ing pre­cise flight con­trol and autonomous deci­sion-mak­ing. 

Autonomous Flight

Bob Bud­decke, Pres­i­dent of Elec­tron­ic Solu­tions at Hon­ey­well Aero­space Tech­nolo­gies, enthused, “Not only is this suc­cess­ful demon­stra­tion a major step in cre­at­ing brand new pos­si­bil­i­ties for the USMC, but it also cre­ates a poten­tial path­way for use by oth­er heli­copter oper­a­tors as well.”

He con­tin­ued, “Togeth­er with Near Earth Auton­o­my and Leonar­do, we’re show­ing how exist­ing air­craft can be adapt­ed with trust­ed avion­ics to sup­port the next gen­er­a­tion of defence logis­tics. Uncrewed air­craft will be vital in keep­ing ser­vice men and women as safe as pos­si­ble in con­test­ed envi­ron­ments, and we are one step clos­er to real­is­ing that vision.” 

The release explains, “The ALC pro­gram, man­aged under a Naval Avi­a­tion Sys­tems Con­sor­tium Oth­er Trans­ac­tion Agree­ment (OTA) with Near Earth Auton­o­my as a prime per­former, aims to devel­op and deploy autonomous aer­i­al logis­tics sys­tems that reduce risk to per­son­nel and increase the speed and scale of sup­ply oper­a­tions.”

It con­tin­ues, “Future test­ing will expand auton­o­my capa­bil­i­ties, includ­ing auto­mat­ed obsta­cle avoid­ance, and inte­gra­tion into mil­i­tary logis­tics work­flows, result­ing in a safer, uncrewed deliv­ery sys­tem to help boost oper­a­tional readi­ness and improve respon­sive­ness in the­atre.” 

Dr. San­jiv Singh, CEO of Near Earth Auton­o­my, remarked, “This flight show­cas­es Near Earth Autonomy’s lead­er­ship in devel­op­ing trust­ed auton­o­my for real-world oper­a­tions. By direct­ly con­trol­ling the AW139’s flight modes with our sys­tem, we’ve shown that scal­able autonomous logis­tics using exist­ing plat­forms is not just pos­si­ble… it’s hap­pen­ing now. This capa­bil­i­ty is essen­tial for reduc­ing risk to mil­i­tary per­son­nel and ensur­ing resilient sup­ply chains in the field.” 

Dr. San­jiv Singh

The part­ner­ship aims to devel­op an auton­o­my solu­tion that is afford­able, scal­able and cer­ti­fi­able for future mis­sions.

For more infor­ma­tion 

https://www.honeywell.com/us/en

www.nearearth.aero

(Top image: Leonar­do AW139 heli­copter)

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