General Atomics Launches SkyGuardian UAS

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General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) has announced that its SkyGuardian UAS launched during the final full week of January, before an audience that included dignitaries from nine different nations including the United States, the United Kingdom and France.

With help from the German Military Aviation Authority, GA-ASI has spent five years developing the UAS in an effort to produce a RPA system capable of operating under very strict airworthiness requirements of non-military airspace.

According to GA-ASI’s CEO Linden Blue, the UAS has a variety of potential uses.

“The SkyGuardian name reflects the system's role in protecting ground forces, as well as its performance of non-military missions like border-surveillance, maritime patrol, and relief over-watch in cases of natural disaster,” Blue says in a press release published by GA-ASI.

The UAS is built to fly more than 35 hours, at speeds of up to 210 knots, and can operate at heights of more than 46,000 feet. The UAS can host a variety of sensors and communications payloads, and it can also transmit high resolution video feeds to both manned aircraft and ground forces.

The aircraft, which is a new variant of the Predator B UAS, will be fully compliant with NATO's UAV System Airworthiness Requirements (which is defined in STANAG 4671), and Britain's DEFSTAN 00-970 standards.

GA-ASI is building three company-owned aircraft and two airframes designed specifically for full-scale fatigue and static testing, to help the system meet type-certification requirements.

The first production of the SkyGuardian is expected to be delivered in 2018.

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Photo Courtesy of General Atomics 


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