{"id":35235,"date":"2018-05-01T14:40:48","date_gmt":"2018-05-01T14:40:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/uncategorized\/2018\/05\/01\/army-to-launch-drone-from-helicopter-for-first-time-this-year\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T00:18:34","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T00:18:34","slug":"army-to-launch-drone-from-helicopter-for-first-time-this-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/unmanned\/2018\/05\/01\/army-to-launch-drone-from-helicopter-for-first-time-this-year\/","title":{"rendered":"US Army to launch drone from helicopter for first time this year"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

NASHVILLE, Tenn. \u2014 The U.S. Army is planning to demonstrate launching an unmanned aircraft system from a rotary-wing platform this year as it looks to how manned and unmanned aircraft will team on the future battlefield<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The service has selected the ALTIUS, the Air-Launched, Tube-Integrated Unmanned System, to launch from a rotary-wing test aircraft \u2014 possibly a UH-60 Black Hawk \u2014 in the late summer\/early fall time frame, Layne Merritt, the Aviation Development Directorate\u2019s chief engineer at the Army\u2019s Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, told Defense News in an interview at the Army Aviation Association of America\u2019s annual summit on April 26.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first test won\u2019t be a direct launch of the system, he said, but is designed to understand the implications of launching something like a drone from underneath a rotary-wing system at low altitude.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a complex aerodynamic issue,\u201d Merritt said, so the first drop will instruct scientists about \u201cthe air flows and the interfaces and the launch dynamics so that the very next launch can be a direct launch.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Army plans to use a common launcher that could either be the rocket pods or a Hellfire launcher and will directly launch the UAS from a helicopter next year following the first test.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Merritt noted it isn\u2019t a first when it comes to directly launching missiles and rockets off a platform, but those systems have one propulsion system. And in the case of a drone, it could be a slow, loitering system with small propellers that will have to become activated at launch, and the downdraft of a helicopter could blow it away.<\/p>\n\n\n\t