Bell Helicopter has teamed with Lockheed Martin, AAI and Textron Systems to produce the Eagle Eye vertical take-off and landing unmanned air vehicle system. The four companies have agreed to form the "core team" to develop and market the tiltrotor UAV.
Lockheed Martin will contribute prototyping, network-centric and low-cost composites capability, AAI will provide its common ground station and Textron Systems will supply specialised UAV weapons - potentially its selectively targeted skeet (STS) submunition, a derivative of its sensor-fuzed weapon.
Bell is already a member of the Lockheed Martin team working on the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's unmanned combat armed rotorcraft programme, and has been selected to assemble the AgustaWestland EH101 in the USA as part of the Lockheed Martin-led US101 team.
Bell is developing the HV-911D Eagle Eye for the US Coast Guard Deepwater programme, for which Lockheed Martin is prime contractor. First flight is planned for the first quarter of 2006, and initial operational capability for late 2007, but Bell's XWorks is building a full-scale pre-production prototype that will fly late this year, or early next year, to "lead the fleet", says programme manager Rob Domka.
The full-scale Eagle Eye will be powered by a 640shp (480kW) Pratt & Whitney Canada PW207D driving 3m (10ft) diameter proprotors. Weighing under 1,360kg (3,000lb), the UAV will have a 136kg payload and 200kt (370km/h) cruise, says Domka. For Deepwater, the Eagle Eye will carry a Telephonics 1700CG surveillance radar, FLIR Systems Star Safire electro-optic/infrared sensor and L-3 tactical common datalink.
Source: Flight International
