Lockheed Martin introduces new small unmanned aircraft

ORLANDO, Fla., May 14 (UPI) -- A new, small unmanned aircraft system that can be rapidly reconfigured in the field for a variety of missions has been introduced by Lockheed Martin.

The system is called Vector Hawk. Its gross weight is just four pounds, while its vertical profile is only four inches. It comes in a number of variants, including fixed-wing and vertical takeoff and landing. Fixed-wing variants can be launched by hand or from a tube.

"We are proud to deliver Vector Hawk, a waterproof system that provides leading edge multi-mission capabilities in all environments," said Kevin Westfall, director of Unmanned Solutions at Lockheed Martin's Mission Systems and Training business. "The Vector Hawk can be field reconfigured to multiple missions including fixed-wing, vertical takeoff and landing and tilt-rotor enabling VTOL with transition to fixed-wing flight."

Vector Hawk is capable of fully autonomous flight and is inaudible at operational slant ranges. Its data link features a high bandwidth software-defined radio, mesh networking and over-the-air reconfiguration.