'Transformer' Touted as Next-Gen Combat Drone

(May 26) -- It takes off like a helicopter, flies like a plane and doesn't need a pilot. That's what one U.S. aerospace company is proposing as the latest in combat drones.

Maryland-based American Dynamics Flight Systems is working on a concept for an aircraft that can take off vertically but then switch to flying forward. Called the AD-150, the aircraft works by using ducted fans mounted on the wingtips to generate lift. Those fans can then tilt when the aircraft transitions to forward flight.

"As a tilt-duct aircraft, it doesn't have the limitations a helicopter has," Wayne Morse, president and CEO of the company, tells AOL News. Once it transitions, it can travel at speeds of up to 300 knots, surpassing even the fastest traditional helicopters.

The company has already completed wind tunnel testing of a scale model at the University of Maryland with the help of state funding. "Right now, we're in the middle of taking a ducted fan and scaling it down to one-quarter size and putting it in the wind tunnel for powered testing," Morse says.

Engineers at the company are also preparing what's known as an "iron bird," or a ground rig, that will be used to test a full-scale model of the aircraft in October, according to Paul Vasilescu, the company's technical development director.

At 15 feet long and with a wing span of about 18 feet, the AD-150 is smaller than the Predator, the unmanned aerial vehicle being used in air strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Morse says the AD-150 could do everything from carrying cargo to firing missiles at the ground.

Other missions for the aircraft might include jamming radar, conducting surveillance and identifying targets.

Though Morse says the aircraft could fulfill multiple roles for different parts of the military, the company has its eye on the Marine Corps, which is looking at buying four drones in the AD-150's size category. The AD-150 could fly ahead of the Marine Corps' V-22 Osprey, a tilt-rotor aircraft, and conduct surveillance and gather intelligence, Morse says.

The company is also working on a launcher system for unmanned aircraft that can fire smaller munitions. "It's not that the [Predator's] Hellfire missile isn't good, but it's an anti-tank weapons system," Morse says. "Firing a Hellfire at a Toyota Land Cruiser with four al-Qaida guys is a lot of overkill, and it's a very expensive weapon system."

The company's missile launcher, by contrast, would allow the military to fire smaller weapons -- such as one with a 5-pound warhead -- from an unmanned aircraft.

Though American Dynamics Flight Systems is a small firm, Morse says that's nothing unusual for the military's unmanned aircraft, which have often been developed by smaller companies, even if they were eventually bought out by large prime contractors.

"It doesn't have to be a prime-level [company]," Morse says. "It happens on my level."