Skydweller Aero Successfully Completes “First Uncrewed Flight Test Campaign”

U.S‑based Sky­d­weller Aero, has suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed the first uncrewed autonomous flight test cam­paign of its Unmanned Aer­i­al Sys­tem (UAS), reports a press release. 

A series of flight tri­als with the two longest being 16 hours and 22.5 hours, were launched from the company’s facil­i­ty at Sten­nis Inter­na­tion­al Air­port in Kiln, Mis­sis­sip­pi.

The release states, “This cam­paign is anoth­er step towards bring­ing extreme flight endurance to the world and demon­strates the fea­si­bil­i­ty of remain­ing air­borne for weeks or even months using solar ener­gy and bat­ter­ies. It is anoth­er sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone in the devel­op­ment of the Sky­d­weller air­craft and its high reli­a­bil­i­ty autonomous vehi­cle man­age­ment sys­tem.”

The cam­paign was ini­ti­at­ed under a Joint Con­cept Tech­nol­o­gy Demon­stra­tion (JCTD) by the Office of the Under­sec­re­tary of Defence for Research & Engi­neer­ing (OUSD R&E) and sus­tained by a Coop­er­a­tive Research & Devel­op­ment Agree­ment (CRADA) with the Naval Air War­fare Cen­tre Air­craft Divi­sion (NAWCAD) to eval­u­ate Autonomous Mar­itime Patrol Air­craft (AMPA).

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Dr. Robert Miller, co-Founder and CEO of Sky­d­weller Aero, com­ment­ed, “This flight test cam­paign is an impor­tant achieve­ment and val­i­dates our busi­ness vision, mark­ing a new era in autonomous avi­a­tion. Our com­pa­ny is redefin­ing what is pos­si­ble in the aero­space indus­try and the data gath­ered, val­i­dates our mod­els for mul­ti-day flights is a tes­ta­ment to our team’s ded­i­ca­tion and inno­va­tion.” 

He added, “We are excit­ed to con­tin­ue push­ing the bound­aries of what uncrewed solar-pow­ered air­craft can achieve and will con­tin­ue on with our mis­sion to bring per­pet­u­al flight to the world.”

Dr Robert Miller

High­lights of the Flight

: Uncrewed Autonomous Oper­a­tion — At high oper­a­tion tem­po, the Sky­d­weller air­craft con­duct­ed a series of long endurance flight tests demon­strat­ing poten­tial to per­form extreme endurance mis­sions.

: Solar-Pow­ered Flight — Pow­ered by solar ener­gy, the air­craft deliv­ers zero car­bon emis­sions with ultra-qui­et oper­a­tions.

: High Reli­a­bil­i­ty Autonomous Sys­tems — The flight demon­strat­ed uncrewed oper­a­tion of Skydweller’s ful­ly redun­dant autonomous sys­tems and beyond-line-of-sight oper­a­tions and com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

Bar­ry Mat­sumori, Pres­i­dent and COO of Sky­d­weller Aero, remarked, “We have accom­plished a major mile­stone toward demon­strat­ing the fea­si­bil­i­ty of per­pet­u­al flight by lever­ag­ing the tril­lions of dol­lars in glob­al research and devel­op­ment invest­ment in solar ener­gy, bat­tery stor­age, and the hand­ing and man­u­fac­tur­ing of extreme­ly strong, ultra light­weight car­bon fibre assem­blies.”

He con­clud­ed, “As these sub­sys­tems improve, we will con­tin­ue to lever­age them for the ben­e­fit of our cus­tomers.”

Bar­ry Mat­sumori

Back­ground

Sky­d­weller Aero is a pio­neer­ing transat­lantic aero­space com­pa­ny devel­op­ing a fleet of the world’s largest solar pow­ered uncrewed air­craft capa­ble of per­form­ing extreme endurance flights with heavy, pow­er­ful pay­loads. The air­craft is designed with all car­bon fibre and a wingspan greater than a 747 with a weight sim­i­lar to a Ford F‑150. 

It is aimed to use the Sky­d­weller for ultra-long dura­tion mis­sions such as pro­vid­ing exclu­sive eco­nom­ic zone enforce­ment, mon­i­tor­ing naval activ­i­ty, and detect­ing drug smug­glers and pirates at sea. 

The com­pa­ny is finan­cial­ly backed by both ven­ture and pri­vate cap­i­tal and has Head­quar­ters in Okla­homa City and Spain.

For more infor­ma­tion

http://www.skydweller.aero

(Images: Sky­d­weller)

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