Bell 407 Helicopter Spawns Vertical Lift Cargo VAV

Fire-X, a vertical unmanned air system (VUAS) developed by Northrop Grumman Corporation and Bell Helicopter, completed its first fully autonomous flight on Dec 10 at Yuma Proving Ground, Ariz., less than one year after development began. It was achieved by integrating Fire Scout's proven autonomous systems developed for the U.S. Navy with the highly successful Bell 407 helicopter that's been in commercial service worldwide since 1996. "We developed a VUAS that meets growing needs for cargo and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities. We can now expand Fire-X's operational capabilities to meet emerging U.S. military requirements in all the Services and Special Operations Command", said Paul Meyer, sector vice president and general manager of the Advanced Programs and Technology Division at Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems. First flight involved a short-duration hover to validate safe and reliable autonomous flight. Additional flight tests and reliability data gathering will be conducted in the coming weeks. Integration of ISR sensor payloads and cargo carrying capability test flights is set to occur early next year.