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.

FMI: www.ga-asi.com, www.lockheedmartin.com