Naval Predator B Derivative Optimized For Work At Sea
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) told ANN
Tuesday the unmanned aircraft systems and tactical reconnaissance
radar manufacturer recently completed wind tunnel testing on a
model of its Mariner unmanned aircraft. GA-ASI conducted
aerodynamic testing of the Mariner airframe to support the
selection of Team Mariner UAS, an initiative with advanced
electronics systems integrator Lockheed Martin, as the solution for
the US Navy’s Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS)
program.
"We are pleased that Mariner’s wind tunnel results
exceeded our expectations," said Thomas J. Cassidy, Jr., president,
Aircraft Systems Group, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc.
"The airframe model was subjected to extensive testing under
calibrated conditions and rigorous analyses by a team of
aerodynamic experts. Preliminary evaluations validated key
competitive capabilities of the aircraft and suggest that
Mariner’s design is even more efficient than originally
assumed. In short, wind tunnel testing has confirmed
Mariner’s capability to provide the U.S. Navy with superior
BAMS mission performance far into the future."
Testing was conducted over a two-week period at the San Diego
Air & Space Technology Center in southern California with a
one-tenth scale model of the Mariner aircraft, which is a
derivative of the company's turboprop Predator B unmanned aircraft
optimized for the unique demands of the Navy.
Aerodynamic testing was performed by a team of engineers from
GA-ASI's Flight Technologies Department and the San Diego Air &
Space Technology Center, as well as personnel from the model's
manufacturer, Patersonlabs, Inc. of Kent, WA. The goal of the
testing was to validate key metrics related to the design
performance of the Mariner aircraft.
GA-ASI says the Mariner wind tunnel testing will help reduce
program risks by providing additional data to improve model
fidelity, instead of relying on computational analyses alone. It
also provided the opportunity to correlate key performance data to
analytical tools such as computational fluid dynamics and to
calibrate various analytical methods.
In addition, the testing enabled a specific set of configuration
changes to be evaluated economically, at a faster pace, and for
important performance sensitivities to be generated.