Nichols Martin
The U.S. Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory has selected Yates Electrospace Corp.‘s Silent Arrow autonomous cargo aircraft to take part in a 12-month flight test effort.
The company said Monday its engineers and test pilots will build and operate 10 Silent Arrow unmanned aerial systems that weigh between 500 pounds to 1,000 pounds.
MCWL seeks to evaluate the Silent Arrow’s capacity to autonomously deliver 700 pounds of cargo to any location within 150 feet.
The laboratory also wants to determine if the UAS could be launched from a fixed- or rotary-wing platform at an altitude of up to 25,000 feet with a glide ratio of between 8:1 and 15:1, the company noted.
Yates Electrospace added MCWL intends for the aircraft to help lower current resupply costs without compromising delivery operations.
Chip Yates, CEO of Yates Electrospace, said the company aims to address performance requirements set forth by MCWL through the UAS test flight program.
