The Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) has provided significantly more information on their an unmanned tilt-rotor named “Smart UAV”, and carried out demonstration flights at Goheung, South Jeolla Province yesterday for the press.  From project commencement in 2002, KARI has been working on the aircraft with relatively few reports being published until now.  The aircraft has been developed so that the aircraft can be controlled from 200km away, and flight testing has been ongoing since 2008.

With a length of 5 metres and “wingspan” of 7 metres, the aircraft is reportedly capable of a speed of 500 km/h. The undercarriage consists of fore and aft legs on the fuselage, each with twin wheels, plus tiny trolly wheels on the “wing tips”.  No details are yet available of the engine(s) but the exhaust format indicates they are turbine and not piston. Around 20 Korean companies participated in the UAV development, with significant contributions from LIG Nex1, Huneed Technologies and Youngpoong Electronics.

Research by the HeliHub.com team suggests that there may be two prototypes flying – some photos show an example with a fleet reference number “2” on the ventral fin and carrying a chin-mount for an IR turret or similar.   At the AUVSI conference in August, a model of the Smart UAV was seen on the Sikorsky Innovations booth, implying that the Connecticut-based manufacturer has been working with KARI on the project.  Sikorsky had previously worked with Bell on their TR918 Eagle Eye unmanned tilt-rotor (also named HV-911 by some!), development of which ceased when the US Coast Guard funding dried up.  The specification of the Korean aircraft is remarkably similar to the TR918 project, which was powered by a P&WC PW207 ebngine and had a wing span of 7.4m and a length of 5.6m.

KARI is also developing is a 60% variant dubbed TR-6X.

Jeremy Parkin – HeliHub.com