Aerospace company Silent Arrow has been awarded a contract by AFWERX, the innovation arm of the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, to develop a heavy-payload, long-range maneuverable drone based on its GD-2000 glider drone that can fly 300 nautical miles (350 miles, 560 kilometers).
SilentArrow has made a name for itself by developing a line of military and civilian autonomous gliding drones that can carry a maximum payload of 1,500 pounds (680 kilograms), can be carried by a transport aircraft or helicopter, deploy their wings, and glide to their destination in a disaster or war zone. They are also designed to be cheap enough to be consumable.
It's an interesting design, but what it lacks is range. For example, the GD-200 can only fly about 35 nautical miles (40 miles, 65 kilometers) after being dropped from a Lockheed Martin C-130, Boeing C-17 or Airbus A400M transport aircraft. The CLS-300 is exactly such a product that hopes to increase the range by 10 times by using motorized propellers to propel the box-shaped aircraft forward.
In addition to its longer range, Silent Arrow said the CLS-300's maneuverable configuration will allow it to take off on its own from non-standard paved runways, ships and other platforms, while still being affordable and disposable.
"We would like to thank the U.S. Air Force, AFWERX, AFRL, and our Air Force customers and end-user organizations for their confidence in awarding this game-changing program," said Founder and CEO Chip Yates. "We look forward to a compressed timeline for propulsion testing in the first half of 2024, followed by flight testing in the second half of 2024, so we can quickly deliver this critical capability to warfighters operating in hazardous areas and to humanitarian and disaster relief organizations serving those in need."