Boeing flies unmanned AH-6

Boeing has announced that they have successfully flown an AH-6 Little Bird unmanned over the desert of Arizona for the first time. The program has been flying the modified helicopter with a safety pilot for the last two years. This was the first flight without the pilot.

The Little Bird flew a 20 minute preprogrammed recon flight, before returning and landing within 6 inches of where it was programmed to set down.

Boeing yesterday revealed it sucessfully completed a test flight last month of its Boeing unmanned Little Bird demonstrator, a modified MD Helicopters 530F, without a safety pilot on board (pictured below).

The helicopter flew on 30 June at US Army Yuma proving ground in Arizona, around 200km (130miles) from the Boeing Rotocraft facility in Mesa, Arizona. The single-engined aircraft has been flown with a safety pilot on board for the past two years. The aircraft has notched up 450h of engineering flight tests.

www.flightglobal.com...

EDIT:

A question that I got an answear to.

[edit on 19-7-2006 by Figher Master FIN]