Drones like these are called tail-sitters, and they have distinct advantages.
An Aerovel Flexrotor drone takes off from the guided-missile destroyer USS Paul Hamilton in the Arabian Gulf on March 8, 2023.On March 8, in the ocean between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula, the US Navy tested out a new drone. Called the Aerovel Flexrotor, it rests on a splayed tail, and boasts a powerful rotor just below the neck of its bulbous front-facing camera pod.
The March flights took place as part of the International Maritime Exercise 2023, billed as a multinational undertaking involving. Activities in the exercise include working on following orders together, maritime patrol, countering naval mines, testing the integration of drones and artificial intelligence, and work related to global health. It is a hodgepodge of missions, capturing the multitude of tasks that navies can be called upon to perform.
This deployment is at least the second time the Flexrotor has been brought to the Persian Gulf by the US Navy. In December 2022, aoperating as part of a Naval task force in the region launched a Flexrotor. This flight was part of an event called Digital Horizon, aimed at integrating drones and AI into Navy operations, and it included 10 systems not yet used in the region.
“The Flexrotor can support intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions day and night using a daylight or infrared camera to provide a real-time video feed,” readfrom US Central Command. The release continued: “In addition to providing ISR capability, UAVs like the Flexrotor enable Task Force 59 to enhance a resilient communications network used by unmanned systems to relay video footage, pictures and other data to command centers ashore and at sea.
Putting drones on ships is hardly new. ScanEagles, a scout-drone used by the US Navy since 2005, can be launched from a rail and landed by net or skyhook. What sets the Flexrotor apart is not that it is a drone on a ship, but the fact that it requires a minimum of infrastructure to make it usable. This is because the drone is a tail-sitter.
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