Kestrel

In 2001 BAE Systems, in partnership with academia, began a privately funded four stage UAV development and demonstration plan aiming to take previous, largely ground based work forward to produce real hardware. Stages one and two covered the demonstration of a novel, semi-autonomous blended wing air vehicle; it is believed that this work remained ground and lab based. Under stage three BAE Systems, in collaboration with Cranfield University, took this work further to include the manufacture and integration of advanced UAV systems. To facilitate this in September 2002 BAE began development of the Kestrel unmanned air vehicle.

Kestrel is a remotely piloted, 5.5m wingspan blended wing body design powered by two gas turbine engines. Though by no means a small aircraft Kestrel is never the less a subscale system likely representative of a much larger UAV concept. As part of the demonstration effort Kestrel also made use of advance low cost composites.

Flight tests began in March 2003 from Campbeltown airport in south west Scotland. Initial flight tests of the vehicle determined that the design was too unstable to be controlled by a human pilot, this lead to the development of an autonomous flight control system for future UAVs. Kestrel was the first jet powered UAV to fly in UK with CAA approval (registered as G-8-003).

Information from Kestrel was used in the development of the follow on UAV Raven and will likely be used by the MoD’s SUAV(E) IPT to allow the UK to make informed decisions on any potential future strategic UAV procurements.

Specifications

Manufacturer – BAE Systems
Target Market (Military/ Civilian etc) – N/A
Type – Demonstrator
Role(s) –
Wingspan – 5.5 m
Length –
Height –
Weight (Empty) –
MTOW – 140 kg
Max Payload –
Power Plant – 2 x gas turbines
Max Speed –
Cruise Speed –
Stall Speed –
Max Operating Radius –
Max Ferry Range –
Max Ceiling –
Typical Operating Altitude –
Max Endurance –
Launch Method(s) – Conventional runway
Recovery Method(s) – Conventional runway

External Links

www.baesystems.com