British Naval Air Squadron 700X Begins Test Of Remote Piloted Aircraft.

A team from 700X Naval Air Squadron, based at RNAS Culdrose, has just returned from specialist training in the USA. Now the Cornwall-based aviators are ready to take the next steps on their innovation journey, as they grow their expertise in the field of remotely piloted aviation.

AeroVironment’s new Puma LE small unmanned aircraft system (Picture source: AeroVironment)

Whilst in Huntsville, Alabama, 700X received training on the Puma and Wasp air systems and learnt how to operate the aircraft in various scenarios. Now the team is looking forward to applying that knowledge in the maritime world – their next stop is flying the aircraft at our training airfield, Predannack.

With a mixture of classroom and practical training, the team learnt how to launch and recover the vehicles in a variety of modes from purely manual to autonomous. Once they had mastered these skills, they progressed onto mission planning using a laptop to programme a mission set and controlled the aircraft from the laptop.

700X NAS Commanding Officer Lt Cdr Justin Matthews is looking forward to putting the new-found skills into action in the UK, he said: “We hope to start flying out of Predannack airfield very soon. Once we gain more experience, then 700X NAS will progress to taking part in exercises in the UK for both maritime and land.”

Puma LE (Long Endurance) joins the Puma All Environment Family and provides the warfighter with superior imagery for Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance during day and night operations in All Environment (AE) conditions. This ultra-lightweight Group 2 aircraft provides 5.5 hours of flight endurance and a 60+ km range when used with the Long Range Tracking Antenna (LRTA). Puma LE contains a secondary payload bay with dedicated power and Ethernet that enables the integration of multi-mission payloads. The secondary payload bay provides 3.4 lbs. of payload capacity in addition to the Mantis i45 for expanded mission capabilities. The aircraft has a total payload capacity of 5.5 lbs. and features a two-case mission pack out, delivering Group 2 capabilities in a Group 1 footprint.

The Wasp AE Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) is the all environment version of AeroVironment’s battle-proven Wasp III. With special design considerations for maritime and land operations, Wasp AE delivers, in a man packable asset, exceptional features of superior imagery, increased endurance, encrypted video, and ease of use that is inherent in all AeroVironment UAS solutions. The UAV is operated from AeroVironment’s battle-proven ground control system (GCS) with a communications range of 5 km and flight endurance of 50 minutes. AeroVironment’s common GCS interfaces with all of its tactical ISR air vehicles reducing the level of training required and decreasing the time and cost involved.