Tekever Makes Farnborough History Again With UAS Flights

Tekever's new AR5 Life Ray Evolution, displayed at the Farnborough International Airshow. AUVSI photo.

By Brett Davis



Portugal's Tekever has kicked off every day of the 2014 Farnborough International Airshow with a flying demonstration of two of its small unmanned aircraft, one of which is making its show debut.



The company's new AR2 Caracara and its older AR4 Lite Ray have taken to the skies above Farnborough to start each day's flying display with a synchronized ballet, a first at the show. The AR4 was the first UAS to fly at Farnborough, making its flight debut at the 2012 show.



"For the first time ever in the history of the show there are two UAVs performing a formation flying display," Tekever CEO Ricardo Mendes said in a press release. "We're extremely happy to be making history at FIA again."



The AR2 is the first product of a new partnership with Brazil's Santos Lab which was also announced at the show. The companies will offer new products around the world but will focus on the South American market.



The AR2 features a waterproof airframe and is aimed at maritime and amphibious operations. It is in use with the Brazilian navy, according to Tekever.



Tekever has also debuted a new aircraft on the static display area, the significantly larger AR5 Life Ray Evolution.



Robert Whitehouse, the company's U.K.-based business development director, said the AR5 was built to meet customer demand for a medium-altitude, medium-endurance aircraft.



The AR5 has an endurance of up to 12 hours and has a satellite communications capability for beyond-line-of-sight operations.



Whitehouse said in a presentation at the show's Intelligent Systems area, which is sponsored by AUVSI, that despite Tekever's plethora of systems, it mainly focuses on communications and in fact started in 2001 as an information technology company.



"We see UAVs as a router in the sky," he said, and have developed a modular communications system that can be modified to meet customer needs depending on the mission.



Police systems, for instance, might require streaming video, where agriculture needs would not, he said.



New Engines



Two companies have debuted unmanned aircraft engines at the show, although they arrived at that business in very different ways.



Engine maker Lycoming, now owned by Textron, is showing its new EL-005, a five-horsepower piston engine now being use on the Aerosonde Mk. 47 built by AAI Corp., another Textron subsdiary. Its 200-horsepower DEL-120, originally developed for general aviation use, has found a home on the U.S. Army's enhanced Gray Eagle, says Lycoming's Mike Kraft.



The Gray Eagles needed new engines after original supplier Thielert went bankrupt, Kraft says, and the new Lycoming engines offer the added benefit of a 32-percent boost in horsepower.



"In order to take advantage of Gray Eagle's full capability, they needed more horsepower," he said in an interview at the show.



Lycoming actually built an engine for an unmanned aircraft back in World War II for a reconnaissance system deployed in the Pacific theater, but had not been in the market since.



As unmanned aircraft became more in demand, the company saw a need to provide high-quality, aircraft-worthy engines to replace off-the-shelf engines intended for motorcycles or snow machines. As UAS get more widely used, Kraft said, their engines need to be more reliable and designed for aviation from the ground up.



The company is hoping to also provide its engines for the next version of AAI's shadow, Kraft said.



The British company Rotron took a different route to UAS engine development, one that included a flight around the top of Mount Everest.



Founder Gilo Cardozo was an enthusiast of paraglider flying, which means strapping an engine to his back to fly using a parachute-style wing. He said he found the available engines to be lacking for this use so he built his own, eventually settling on a rotary design. He now has a factory in Dorset and has sold thousands of the systems.



However, Cardozo wanted to go higher, because he wanted to fly to the top of Mount Everest. That required an even tougher engine capable of working at extremely high altitudes. Eventually he was able to squeak 110 horsepower out of an engine originally designed for 40.



He and an adventurer friend accomplished the Everest fight in 2007, reaching an ultimate altitude of 30,000 feet and circling the peak of the mountain.



"That engine has actually spawned a whole new business for us," he said, as they got a Ministry of Defence contract for UAS engines.



The company has now supplied engines for a variety of unmanned aircraft, including some secret programs in the United States, Cardozo said in a briefing in the Intelligent Systems area.



Ready for Export



General Atomics Aeronautical Systems announced at the show that its Predator XP, the unarmed, updated export version of its Predator A, has had its first flight.



The flight took place on 27 June at Castle Dome Heliport at the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona, which will also be the venue for the company to demonstrate it to potential international clients.



In the 35-minute flight, the vehicle flew to operational altitude and completed basic airworthiness maneuvers. Later flights will verify capabilities such as automatic takeoff and landing and satellite communications.



"We are now positioned to restart the Predator production line and proceed directly to full production in anticipation of new customer orders," Frank Pace, president of aircraft systems at GA-ASI, said in a press release.