3 ms·
DARPA unveils 6 new designs for uncrewed vertical-takeoff military aircraft
- wussboy 2y agoDown voting because the article doesn’t show any of the designs without (I imagine) watching a video and the site steals your back navigation on mobile to take you to another page.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- mslip1 2y agoThe images are there and you don’t have to watch a video
- wood_spirit 2y agoActually yes I too couldnt see any pictures on my phone nor get any real info. In my case I couldn’t spot a video either. Just lots and lots of ads. Very low info clickbait, which is a shame because I would appreciate an actual article on this subject :(
- WhackyIdeas 2y agoDownvoting - that will teach them!
- jacknews 2y agoVTOL is a big overhead for a plane to carry. They could consider 2-stage launch/landing? A booster drone lifts the operational drone to flight height and speed, releases it, and then immediately returns. And then either the same, or a dedicated landing drone, catches the aircraft and lands it. Kind of a virtual runway.
- gonzo41 2y agoSo things like the ScanEagle [1], have existed for 20 years. That catapult launcher works a treat, and they have hooks on the wings so you land them by flying into a cord and then the drone just slides down onto the ground. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Insitu_ScanEagle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Insitu_ScanEagle
- jacknews 2y agoA bit more basic than what I had in mind, but thanks, that's interesting.
- ianburrell 2y agoThat is a lot more complicated for something that isn’t needed. These VTOL are for medium drones that currently operate from fields or ships. But not for full sized aircraft which are going to take off from runways. Which would be easier to work like F-35B. There is advantage to take off vertically close to troops. I’ve been following V-BAT which is tail lander, and competing to replace recon drone that takes off from field. And only needs a couple people to operate.
- jacknews 2y ago"There is advantage to take off vertically close to troops" Of course, it just seems you could launch them vertically, in two stages, so the drone itself is unencumbered by VTOL requirements, and such a system could potentially scale to manned craft.
- 2y ago
- Log_out_ 2y agoIts still the good old artisanal paradigm, we shove it in the pipeline, a subcontractor builds them for a few millions each to spec then we repeat that on failure to perform. Meanwhile other military only have "standards", you buy of the shelve components, add standardized interfaces and can iterrate and produce ridiculous fast. Drone does not fly or bombs otherwise? Change it, even automated build it, fly it, while darpa hasn't started reading reports on equipment failures.
- Eridrus 2y agoI don't think there are any off the shelf drones that would be useful in a long range setting, e.g. the naval settings described in the article.
- Log_out_ 2y agoGlue a off the shelf drone to a off the shelf missile as payload. It comes down to standards again. Replace slow to dev and produce expensive systems with frankensteined, good enough cheap systems. Stack several drones on top of some old outdated longrange system, have one float a starlink connections for the others. Still cheaper, faster in the field and similar effective compared to those artisanal systems.
- Eridrus 2y agoYou should try and name a specific off the shelf drone here that can carry a missile payload.
- halJordan 2y agoYou're misunderstanding darpa and its role in defense acquisition.
- Log_out_ 2y agoIts not only build the best system for the lowest price, but build the best system the others can not copy and deteriorate the glibal strategic situation.