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Fixed-Wing Military Drone Can Now Morph Into VTOL With Almost Zero Effort

When one thinks about military drones they tend to image the largest of them, things like the RQ-4 Global Hawk or the MQ-1 Predator. These are also some of the most powerful presently flying in the skies of our world. But they are not the only ones and, as made painfully obvious by the war in Ukraine, drones a lot smaller and simpler can have deadlier effects.
AeroVironment Puma drone with VTOL conversion kit 11 photos
Photo: AeroVironment
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This family of small military drones is incredibly diverse. They come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, they launch and land in a variety of ways, and are used for all sorts of imaginable tasks.

Generally speaking though, once a drone was built a certain way (like say as a fixed-wing aircraft or a VTOL), you can't easily change the way the machine departs for a mission or comes back from it. Well, scratch that, as American defense contractor AeroVironment just came up with a way to do that in minutes and with a minimum of effort. Enter the VTOL kit for the Puma family of drones.

For the record, the Pumas are fixed-winged aircraft that are launched by hand, and need a bit of distance to climb and land. They are used for surveillance and intelligence gathering, and the range of just 37 miles (60 km) means they are generally right there in the heat of battle. Meaning in places where horizontal launches and landings are not always possible or advised.

And that's what the new VTOL kit is here to change. Without major modifications to the drone's base design, with no need for additional tools, the kit can transform the Pumas into full-blown vertical take-off and landing machines.

More to the point, the kit comprises two boom assemblies that go over the wings. Four propellers snap into place, two on each wing, to provide lift with no need for the drone to be tossed into the air.

Once airborne, the operator can switch the system off and make the transition to forward (or backward, as these things can do that too) flight. The kit itself has enough juice to be used for up to 1.5 hours, and can receive and respond to commands sent from as far as 37 miles (60 km) away.

The system has been designed to work with both the Puma 2 AE and Puma 3 AE drones. It's already being offered by AeroVironment as an add-on option for the new pieces of hardware delivered to the military, but it can also be installed as a retrofit kit for the drones already in use.

Pricing is, of course, a confidential matter, but sales of this kit should represent a major boost for the company, already the largest supplier of drones for the American military: some 20,000 of its machines are presently in use.

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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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