First flight for Korea Aerospace Industries' VTOL UAV.

Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) announced that the company succeeded in flying an unmanned helicopter, NI-600VT (Night Intruder-600 Vertical Take- off & Landing) in its first flight, which is being developed under its own R&D fund.

NI-600VT (Picture source: KAI)

In the first flight which was held September 24, in Goheung Aerospace Center, South Jeolla Province, the NI-600VT showed hovering and horizontal direction conversion functions and by doing so, the copter confirmed its flight control performance and safety.

The NI-600VT copter which made a successful maiden flight, a reformed version of a twin seat commercial helicopter is a 600kg-class vertical take-off & landing  unmanned one, the core systems of which, such as auto flight controls and avionics were entirely developed by KAI's independant technology. The company enhanced the copter's stability of operation via the multiplex of the flight-critical equipment including flight control computer, sensors and data-link. The NI-600VT copter is capable of locating its position automatically even under an emergency condition to return safely to its base.

KAI plans to determinate off the first-phase development of the NI-600VT within this year and secure its automatic take-off and landing ability, by starting the second-phase follow-up development in order to advance the copter's ability of operation further.