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🇺🇸 A cargo helicopter with nobody at the controls dodged a surprise no-fly zone and landed itself in front of the Army... the pilot in the seat never touched a thing
Airbus took its MQ-72C, a drone version of the Lakota helicopter the Army already flies, to Huntsville last week and ran five flights on its own dime.
The aircraft held complex hover patterns, flew normal airfield traffic, and when operators dropped a no-fly zone into the middle of its route it rerouted itself without anyone touching the controls.
A safety pilot sat aboard the whole time and never took over. In other tests it took commands from a tablet.
The Marines have been paying for this to resupply island outposts in a Pacific fight.
The Army’s interest is simpler: its new tiltrotors will fly air assaults 500 miles in one hop, and the 101st Airborne’s commander says you can’t sling-load a Humvee under something moving 250 knots, so the beans and bullets need their own ride.
The Iran war showed what happens to supply lines under drone and missile fire.
A helicopter that delivers ammo without a pilot to lose is the answer that just landed in the Army’s lap, already built with somebody else’s money.
Source: The War Zone / Writer: Daniel
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Basemint @thebasemint1 ·
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@MarioNawfal Turning a helicopter the Army already flies into a drone beats starting a brand-new program from scratch. Proven airframe, new capability, and a lot less taxpayer money burned on a decade of development.
