The Aurora Goldeneye is a reconnaissance UAV under development in the United States of America during the first decade of the 21st century. It is a
ducted fan
In aeronautics, a ducted fan is a thrust-generating mechanical fan or Propeller (aeronautics), propeller mounted within a cylindrical wiktionary:duct, duct or shroud. Other terms include ducted propeller or shrouded propeller. When used in vertic ...
design in roughly the same class as the
Sikorsky Cypher II. This UAV was built under a
DARPA
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Adva ...
contract and is apparently focused on covert or special forces operations.
The Goldeneye is a "
tail-sitter
A tail-sitter, or tailsitter, is a type of VTOL aircraft that takes off and lands on its empennage, tail, then tilts horizontally for forward flight.
Originating in the 1920s with the inventor Nikola Tesla, the first aircraft to adopt a tail-sit ...
" or "pogo" machine that takes off and lands straight up. It is a stumpy-looking machine with four tailfins, each with landing gear on the fintip, and a wing that pivots, allowing it to be aligned with the aircraft centerline in cruise flight and at a right angle to the centerline in hover flight.
The Goldeneye is built of graphite and fiberglass composites, and has a low radar, infrared, and acoustic signature. It is powered by a 28 kW (38 hp) Wankel-rotary engine from AV Engines Ltd
in the UK. It has an autonomous flight control system with GPS-INS navigation.
The Goldeneye can carry a small electo-optic sensor turret or other payload and features a radio datalink. Apparently the DARPA specification mysteriously required that it be able to carry "two coke-can size payloads" that were not described further. Aurora is working on a half-scale version of the Goldeneye for commercial sales.
Specifications (Goldeneye 100)
References
This article contains material that originally came from the web article by Greg Goebel, which exists in the Public Domain.
2000s United States military reconnaissance aircraft
Unmanned aerial vehicles of the United States
Tailsitter aircraft
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