PROTEUS TESTED UNMANNED JET USED IN MOCK BOMB DROP.Byline: Daily News Northrop Grumman used Scaled Composite's Proteus jet to drop a 500-pound dummy bomb in a test for a medium-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aircraft. The test, done Feb. 24 over Nellis Air Force Base Nellis Air Force Base (IATA: LSV, ICAO: KLSV) is a United States Air Force base, in Clark County, Nevada, on the northeast side of Las Vegas. It is also treated as a census-designated place by the United States Census for statistical purposes, and so specific in Nevada, is the latest in a series of company-funded activities focused on addressing the U.S. Department of Defense's expanding medium-altitude endurance ``unmanned aerial vehicle'' requirements. The test also supports an ongoing Northrop Grumman-funded effort to develop a new multimission medium-altitude UAV UAV Unmanned Aerial Vehicle UAV Unmanned Air Vehicle UAV Unmanned Aerospace Vehicle UAV Unmanned Airborne Vehicle UAV Uninhabited Air Vehicle UAV Urban Assault Vehicle UAV Unpiloted Aerial Vehicle (less common) dubbed Model 395. Based on the Proteus, Model 395 will be able to perform a variety of missions ranging from traditional intelligence gathering to carrying sensors and bombs or missiles to track and attack targets. ``The weapons drop is the first of several demonstrations the company has planned to exercise and highlight Model 395's ability to fulfill a variety of special customer mission requirements,'' said Steve True, Northrop Grumman's Model 395 test director. For the test, the Proteus was equipped with a weapon release system developed by EDO Edo: see Tokyo, Japan. Corp. Northrop Grumman already builds the high-altitude, long-endurance computer-controlled RQ-4 Global Hawk The Northrop Grumman (formerly Ryan Aeronautical) RQ-4 Global Hawk (known as Tier II+ during development) is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) used by the US Air Force as a surveillance aircraft. aerial reconnaissance jet; the medium altitude endurance Hunter II; its shorter-range, lower-altitude RQ-5 Hunter tactical UAV; and the RQ-8 Fire Scout vertical takeoff and landing Vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) A flight technique in which an aircraft rises directly into the air and settles vertically onto the ground. Such aircraft do not need runways but can operate from a small pad or, in some cases, from an unprepared site. tactical UAV. The high-altitude Proteus jet was unveiled by aircraft designer Burt Rutan at his Scaled Composites plant in Mojave in 1998. The craft set altitude records and has been used in NASA NASA: see National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA in full National Aeronautics and Space Administration Independent U.S. tests. CAPTION(S): photo Photo: (color) Scaled Composites' Proteus was used by Northrop Grumman in a test at a range in Nevada. Northrop Grumman |
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