Here is Pentagon’s Future Tilt-Rotor Drone

February 13, 2014 Drones
David Cenciotti

Aerial Reconfigurable Embedded System will perform cargo resupply, CASEVAC and ISR missions

According to Darpa “ARES is a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) flight module designed to operate as an unmanned platform capable of transporting a variety of payloads. The ARES VTOL flight module is designed to have its own power system, fuel, digital flight controls and remote command-and-control interfaces. Twin tilting ducted fans will provide efficient hovering and landing capabilities in a compact configuration, with rapid conversion to high-speed cruise flight.”

ARES is the transformer-like, UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) capable to move between an airport, a warship, or an improvised landing zone and the battlefield, and perform a wide variety of missions, including cargo transportation, casualties evacuation as well as Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance.

In other words, ARES will replace the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft and a few other platforms.

Obviously, using a drone to perform such missions in a contested airspace reduces the risks of losing airmen.

By the way, ARES will be remotely piloted using smartphones and tablets: we are moving towards air war 2.0.

ARES Darpa Battlefield Operations

Image credit: Lockheed Martin

 

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About David Cenciotti
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David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.

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9 Comments

  2. that scares me. Even Iran could capture one of our drones. That might be old school, but I think transport vehicles need a real pilot, as well bombers and fighters

    • michael this will save countless lives – both the lives of pilots who don’t have to go into dangerous zones and also the lives of soldiers on the ground who can be evacuated by a drone that can fly into a contested area that is too dangerous for a pilot.

      • and how many will fall from the skies with soldiers in it? how many will be captured while transporting our troops?

        I know that in an optimal case, that would never happen, but we have to face, how many drones we lost, without cyber attacks. A machine with a pilot is reliable, a drone isn’t.

  4. Here we go again. they introduced drones as simplified reconnaisance/attack platforms, dispensing with the pilot. now they are progressively adding more features and systems, its becoming complicated. next thing you know, they’ll add a pilot….. lol

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