Sikorsky expands its automated flight program
- A Sikorsky S-76B helicopter, operating with in the Royal Thai Navy. Photo courtesy of Sikorsky Aircraft
The Department of Defense awarded Sikorsky Aircraft a $9.8 million grant to continue its development of a system that would allow helicopters to fly autonomously, with Sikorsky expanding the system to include fixed-wing aircraft.
The Stratford-based company, a longtime subsidiary of Hartford-based United Technologies, is in the process of being acquired by Maryland-based Lockheed Martin.
DOD awarded the grant through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. Sikorsky previously received $8 million under the program and has committed $7.6 million of its own funding for the project, which is scheduled to be completed in January 2017.
Speaking at the Paris Air Show in June, Sikorsky President Bob Leduc said Sikorsky had flight-tested a system that month that allowed a Sikorsky S-76 helicopter to fly autonomously to and from coordinates entered into a tablet computer.
“A lot of people ”¦ scoff at the ability to have a fully autonomous helicopter,” Leduc said in June. “We”™re actually flying an S-76 around fully autonomously.”
Sikorsky”™s work on automation in helicopters dates back to its efforts to created an automated system to handle a helicopter”™s approach path to oil rigs, allowing pilot”™s to focus on the steps they need to take in advance of landing aircraft in sea conditions. The Federal Aviation Administration approved Sikorsky”™s rig-approach system in 2013 with the FAA”™s counterpart agency in Europe following suit this past June.
“It basically lets a pilot fly right to the oil platform and takes all the workload off the pilot, so that they can be focused on situational awareness and lining up their landing spot rather than worrying about how they”™re going to get out to the rig,” Leduc said. “We”™ve sold about 50 of these. We fully expect, now that we”™ve got (European) certification, that in the North Sea virtually every operator will want it.”
Hearst Connecticut Media includes four daily newspapers: Connecticut Post, Greenwich Time, The Advocate (Stamford) and The News-Times (Danbury). See StamfordAdvocate.com for more from this reporter.