Precision Helicopters, of Newberg, Ore., placed the launch order for the Aerovel Flexrotor, a vertical takeoff and landing UAV that also operates as a conventional fixed-wing aircraft. Precision’s Integrated Programs division plans to deploy the aircraft for missions including “reconnaissance over the Arctic Ocean.”
The 45-pound Flexrotor is a “tailsitter” aircraft that transitions from vertical thrust-borne to horizontal wing-borne flight. It has a large rotor that serves as a propeller during winged flight and electrically powered wingtip thrusters that counter the rotor’s torque in vertical flight. Aerovel, a company headed by Insitu co-founder Tad McGeer, revealed the aircraft in 2010.
Precision is a helicopter and fixed-wing training school that is also a Part 135 charter operator and a Part 145 MRO facility. Its unmanned division supports “commercial interests, wildlife and environmental preservation bodies, humanitarian, disaster relief/emergency response organizations, and (U.S. government) national defense, intelligence and Homeland Security entities.”
The company expects delivery of the Flexrotor and support equipment this spring. The aircraft will be equipped with an Alticam Vision stabilized camera turret for daylight video imaging. “We are going after new civil applications at sea and on land which require big improvements over existing aircraft in economics, footprint and endurance,” said Matt Parker, Precision’s unmanned aircraft systems director. “Flexrotor provides the quantum leap in the state of the art that can make these applications technically and economically practical.”
Aerovel’s McGeer stated: “Our two companies share the goal of making civil applications economic, and now we are going to put our ideas into service.”