The
Alenia Aeronautica
Alenia Aeronautica was an Italian aerospace company. Its subsidiary, subsidiaries included Aermacchi, Alenia Aermacchi and Alenia Aeronavali.
Alenia Aeronautica was also the part-owner of ATR (aircraft manufacturer), ATR, a joint venture with E ...
Sky-X is a self-financed
unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for
demonstration and research purpose; on May 29, 2005, it became the first European-designed
UAV
An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or unmanned aircraft system (UAS), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft with no human pilot, crew, or passengers onboard, but rather is controlled remotely or is autonomous.De Gruyter Handbook of Drone ...
in the over 1000
kg category to fly with success.
Design and development
The roll-out of the Sky-X was carried out by Alenia in May 2003 and, after 18 months of development, it first flew at the
Swedish test area of
Vidsel.
After a first test campaign conducted with ground control in order to explore the whole flight envelope the development has focused on the autonomous flight systems, in particular the ATOL system (Assisted take off and landing), the
collision avoidance, the precision autonomous navigation, the sight autonomous landing and attack and the autonomous formation fly capabilities. In 2008 the Sky-X demonstrated the capability of carrying out the join-up maneuvers necessary for
in-fly refueling with an
Alenia C-27J
The Alenia C-27J Spartan is a military transport aircraft developed and manufactured by Leonardo's Aircraft Division (formerly Alenia Aermacchi until 2016). It is an advanced derivative of the former Alenia Aeronautica's earlier G.222 (C-27 ...
.
Thanks to the technologies developed for the Sky-X in 2005 Alenia Aeronautica has joined the
nEUROn European program with a consistent development share.
Alenia Aereonautica official Neuron data sheet
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Specifications (Sky-X)
References
External links
Alenia Aeronautica official webpage
{{Portal bar, Italy, Companies, Aviation
Sky-X
2000s Italian experimental aircraft
V-tail aircraft
Unmanned military aircraft of Italy
Aircraft first flown in 2005
High-wing aircraft
Unmanned aerial vehicles of Italy
Single-engined jet aircraft
Aircraft with retractable tricycle landing gear