Aurora Goldeneye

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type=Reconnaissance UAV
national origin=United States
manufacturer=Aurora Flight Sciences
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first flight=avyear|2003
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The Aurora Goldeneye is a reconnaissance UAV under development in the United States during the first decade of the 21st century. It is a ducted-fan design in roughly the same class as the Sikorsky Cypher II. This UAV was built under a DARPA contract and is apparently focused on covert or special forces operations.

The Goldeneye is a "tailsitter" or "pogo" machine that takes off and lands straight up. It is a stumpy-looking machine with four tailfins, each with landing gear on the fintip, and a wing that pivots, allowing it to be aligned with the aircraft centerline in cruise flight and at a right angle to the centerline in hover flight.

The Goldeneye is built of graphite and fiberglass composites, and has a low radar, infrared, and acoustic signature. It is powered by a 28 kW (38 hp) Wankel-rotary engine from UAV Engines LTD in the UK. It has an autonomous flight control system with GPS-INS navigation.

The Goldeneye can carry a small electo-optic sensor turret or other payload and features a radio datalink. Apparently the DARPA specification mysteriously required that it be able to carry "two coke-can size payloads" that were not described further. Aurora is working on a half-scale version of the Goldeneye for commercial sales.

The family of Goldeneye vehicles do not meet the advertised range and payload. Additionally, their design is a single string failure - there is no redundancy in this vehicle.

pecifications (Goldeneye 100)

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crew=None
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span m=3.00
span ft=10
span in=0
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dia m= 0.90
dia ft= 3
dia in= 0
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height m=1.70
height ft=5
height in=6
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empty weight kg=48
empty weight lb=105
gross weight kg=68
gross weight lb=150
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eng1 number=1
eng1 type=UAV Engines AR741
eng1 kw= 28
eng1 hp= 38
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max speed kmh=295
max speed mph=185
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range km=1,000
range miles=620
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References

This article contains material that originally came from the web article [http://www.vectorsite.net/twuav.html "Unmanned Aerial Vehicles"] by Greg Goebel, which exists in the Public Domain.