Top five sUAS News stories from the unmanned aircraft world in 2013.
To you dear reader, a Happy New year and blessed time with friends and family from all of us at sUAS News. Thanks for all the news tips and support that have been offered. If you have an sUAS start up and want to get the word out then please drop me a line.
So that was 2013, the year the FAA dropped the ball with the NPRM yet again but announced defence vendor friendly UAS test sites just before their self imposed 2013 deadline.
This year multirotors have truly taken over the UA world and this is reflected in our list of most popular stories as indicated by Google Analytics.
1 Quadrocopter swarm as a harbinger of Paramount’s “Star Trek – Into Darkness”
Spectacular (f)light-show over London
As a harbinger for the Paramount film “Star Trek – Into Darkness”, starting in May in Europe’s cinemas, last night a swarm of 30 mini-helicopters equipped with the LED lights drew the Star Trek logo into the skies over London. The choreography for the show was developed by Ars Electronica Futurelab from Linz (Austria). Quadrocopter maker Ascending Technologies GmbH from Munich (Germany) provided the aircraft.
30 LED-equipped mini-helicopters, for its four rotors also called quadrocopters, started last night to a spectacular show: They drew the Star Trek logo into the night sky over the city of London. Film producer Paramount had commissioned the flying light sculpture.
2. Hyundai’s flying car, manned hexadecagon
Hyundai reveals unique concepts for single-person future mobility, designed for use in congested cities across the globe. Prototypes have been created by engineers working at the company’s research and development (R&D) centre in Korea for an internal contest called the ‘IDEA festival’.
3. New bird shaped UAS.
EXPAL will participate in HOMSEC 2013, displaying some of its most innovative solutions in the security area. Among other
products, SHEPHERD-MIL, an UAV which looks like a native bird with the same flight performance, will be featured. This UAV is characterized by the glide-ratio and noiseless motor that make it invisible, silent and unobtrusive in sensitive missions. SHEPHERD-MIL was initially developed as a bird strike avoidance system, and currently is used in situations where the safety and protection are key.
4. Iranian Koker 1 VTOL drone, faked images
We recently posted Koker 1, Iran’s VTOL UA offering. Daily I am seeing stories claiming it to be a worlds first in class.
When I first saw it I knew it was something I had seen before but just could not think where. It had stuck in my mind because it looks like they used Easystar wings! I am sure they are not, just very similar. I sat down this morning to add something about why the Koker 1 is not the worlds first of this type and remembered the original platform.
Its the Quad Tilt Wing or QTW UAV a project that came out of The Chiba University in Japan, in collaboration with composite company GH Craft the airframe had its first flight in 2008 and was said to be able to carry a 5kg payload for 15 minutes at 81kt.
5. SpaceX Grasshopper launch filmed from hexacopter
SpaceX’s Grasshopper flew 325 m (1066 feet)–higher than Manhattan’s Chrysler Building–before smoothly landing back on the pad. For the first time in this test, Grasshopper made use of its full navigation sensor suite with the F9-R closed loop control flight algorithms to accomplish a precision landing. Most rockets are equipped with sensors to determine position, but these sensors are generally not accurate enough to accomplish the type of precision landing necessary with Grasshopper.
