South Korea is developing a fast, unmanned aircraft vertical takeoff and landing. The cruising speed of the aircraft will be 400km/h and this will make it the fastest vtol-uav in the world. The mass production of the device begins in 2015.
The powered lift aircraft that South Korea is developed, makes use of wings with a pivoting engine nacelles, which are equipped with a large propeller or rotor. For the vertical take off and landing the nacelles turned upwards, while they slowly turned forward to the cruise. This concept is already applied in the V-22 Osprey of the U.s. army.
With the kruisvluchtconfiguratie reached the South Korean vtol-uav with a cruising speed of approximately 400km/h. That is considerably faster than, for example, the well known Predator uav, the Us army, which has a cruising speed of 135km/h and a maximum speed of 217km/h. The fastest uav currently in development, the Phantom Ray from Boeing. This is a flying-wing design, with a jet engine, a speed needs to pick up of 980km/h. The Phantom Ray, however, has no vtol capabilities.
The unit has, since 2002, in development under the leadership of the Ministry of Knowledge Economy and the Korea Aerospace Research Institute. Also, a large number of companies and research centres involved in the development.
The developers are now working on the dimensions of the device decrease. The current prototype is five meters long, has a wingspan of seven feet and weighs about a ton. The intention is to reduce the size of the final device with a sixty percent return.
It is not known which South Korea the vtol-uav is going to bet, but it is expected that military purposes were included. The development of the device will be in march 2012 and the mass production would be three years later.
Source: Fareastgizmos