Allied Aerospace VTOL UAV attains full-autonomy

Newport News, VA, April, 2004 Allied Aerospace announced today that their unmanned air vehicle, the iSTAR UAV, has made several successful, fully-autonomous flights at the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Robotics Testing Range in Pt. Loma, CA.

Newport News, VA April 2, 2004 - Allied Aerospace announced today that their unmanned air vehicle, the iSTAR UAV, has made several successful, fully-autonomous flights at the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Robotics Testing Range in Pt. Loma, CA. The two-minute flights have consisted of auto-takeoff, hover-hold, several waypoint captures and landing on a specified targets. All the maneuvers were executed hands-off while the 29 diameter vehicle relayed real-time color video back to a remote ground station. Over the past several months, Allied UAVs have been routinely flying autonomously, but with the aid of a safety tether.

Were extremely proud of our team in Pt. Loma said Gary Downs, Dir., Unmanned Systems for Allied. "This accomplishment marks a major milestone for our UAV program"

The iSTAR is a ducted-fan vehicle, designed to carry a variety of surveillance and detection sensors into hazardous or otherwise unreachable areas. The ducted-fan enables it to take-off vertically, hover, then using the duct as a ring-wing, rotate into near-horizontal flight, recover to a hover and land vertically. The list of applications is enormous, says Downs, Not only is the military excited about our program, but many sectors of the civil market have come forward showing interest.

About Allied Aerospace
Allied Aerospace is an industry leader in the engineering and manufacture of complex aerospace hardware and prototype systems for ground test and flight applications. The company has five primary business areas: propulsion system test rigs and components (fans, compressors, turbines), aerospace prototype and test hardware (fixed wing aircraft, rotary wing aircraft, missiles), wind tunnel testing services (two wind tunnels providing low speed, transonic, and supersonic flows), unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and Field Services (technical and management services to NASA and DoD). In composite materials, Allied develops and implements unique fabrication methodologies such as core forming and machining as well as the fabrication of complex composite structures. Allied is supporting global aerospace programs such as: Airbus A380 engine for Rolls-Royce, Boeing 7E7 Dreamliner and Joint Strike Fighter engines for Pratt & Whitney and Infrared Suppressor technology for the US Army to protect helicopters operating in hostile environments such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

For more information contact:
Gary Downs
Director of Unmanned Systems
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To learn more, visit Allied at http://www..alliedaerospace.com