NoCo startup debuts unmanned helicopter

Erin Udell, The Coloradoan

Not to be outdone by large defense contractors with big staffs and even bigger budgets, a Northern Colorado startup recently completed an unmanned helicopter that can successfully take off from and land on a moving target.

Scion UAS LLC, which works out of a shop near the Fort Collins-Loveland Municipal Airport, just demonstrated the capabilities of their SA-400, nicknamed “the Jackal,” which was able to make more than 10 takeoffs and landings on a 16-foot by 20-foot trailer being towed along a runway.

The 1,500-pound helicopter is optionally manned, meaning a pilot can fly the aircraft but doesn’t have to. It is designed to carry a 100-pound payload for more than four hours, according to a news release. A safety pilot was on board the SA-400 during test flights in Colorado, but it remained unmanned during tests in Wyoming, Scion UAS CEO Steen Mogensen said.

Founded in 2011, Scion UAS has a team of four engineers and four or five more people on the manufacturing side, and is still considered a startup, according to Mogensen.

“Compared to (companies like) Boeing or Lockheed Martin, we’re so small it’s almost funny,” he said, adding that being able to produce aircraft like the SA-400 has made the company “quite proud.”

The SA-400 had been in the works for two years. Scion UAS won the contract for the aircraft from the U.S. Naval Research Lab (NRL) in September 2012, and since then the project went from “notes in a notebook,” to a fully functioning, autonomous helicopter that was delivered Thursday morning to the NRL in Washington, D.C.

Another SA-400 for the NRL is in the works and will likely be delivered in the next couple months, Mogensen said.

While he was driving the helicopter across the country last week, Phillip Jones, director of software development for Scion UAS, said the NRL will use the unmanned aerial vehicle as part of its research and development program, developing a payload — what hangs from the helicopter, anything from cameras to spray booms for crop dusting — for that specific kind of aircraft.

Crafts like the SA-400 can be used for civilian or military applications — anything from search-and-rescue missions and aerial mapping to agricultural uses and help during wildfires, Mogensen said.

“This is a major achievement which demonstrates that a small company can push the state-of-the-art in VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) UAS (unmanned aerial system) development on an austere budget,” Al Cross, head of the NRL’s vehicle research section said in the Scion UAS news release. “I am very proud of what Scion UAS has accomplished today and look forward to accepting the SA-400 vehicles into the NRL research vehicle inventory.”

With work on the second SA-400 almost complete, Mogensen said Scion UAS is starting to get into the final test phases of the SA-200 helicopter, a smaller, 150-pound unmanned vehicle nicknamed, “the Weasel.”

The company is also starting to push hard for international business since completion of the SA-400.

“This is a really big deal for us,” Jones said of the completion of the SA-400. “We’ve demonstrated to our customers that it can do everything we said it can.”

Scion USA did it with a staff that’s a fraction of what other companies have, he said, though their sister company, Loveland-based Scion Aviation, does help on the manufacturing side.

“You have to wear a bunch of different hats everyday,” Jones said, adding that some engineers also have their hands in the marketing, development and web presence side of the business. “We have to do it all.”

http://www.coloradoan.com/story/money/2014/10/12/noco-startup-debuts-unmanned-helicopter/16996749/