IEEE BUENAVENTURA

Global Observer UAV

System and Test Results

Jan 21, 2015 at 6:30 pm

at CLU Ahmanson Richter Hall

Meetings are free and open to the public

 

Global Observer (GO) is a high-altitude long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle designed and built by AeroVironment to manoeuvre manoeuvre automatically even under adverse weather conditions for specific missions: maritime patrol, hurricane or storm tracking, detection and location of electromagnetic interference, and agriculture optimisation operations. The GO is the first UAV to be fitted with a liquid hydrogen fuelled propulsion system. It can be transported by a C-130 aircraft. Flying at a maximum altitude of 65,000ft (19,812m), the GO provides its operators with real-time intelligence data transmitted to the ground control station (GCS) through a satellite communication data link. The UAV can render communication relay when cell towers, microwave relays and satellite downlinks are damaged.

 

Andy Thurling, Chief Pilot and Director of Product Safety & Mission Assurance at AeroVironment, Inc. will discuss the reasons that launched the GO project, the system architecture of this new UAV architecture and the test results.

 

Originally from Rochester, New York, Andy Thurling graduated from MIT and was commissioned as an Air Force officer in June 1987. Over the next decade, Thurling served in various positions as an F-15 fighter pilot, including Chief of Programming and Flight Commander, before being selected for Test Pilot School. 

 

Thurling is a Distinguished Graduate of the Air Force Institute of Technology and the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School. He has held several positions as a test pilot including Chief of Test and Evaluation in the F-22 Program Office and as an instructor at the Test Pilot School. His career in the Air Force culminated as Commander of the 452d Flight Test Squadron and Director of the Global Vigilance Combined Test Force, a unit responsible for the flight test of the nation’s newest unmanned aircraft including the Global Hawk, Predator, and X-47 Navy UAS aircraft. He has more than 2,300 hours of flight time in more than 35 types of aircraft.

 

At AeroVironment, Thurling has been responsible for all phases of testing on AeroVironment’s revolutionary hydrogen-powered unmanned aircraft, the Global Observer, from strategic test concept development to acting as initial cadre instructor pilot.  He was awarded the 2011 AUVSI Foundation “Operations Award” for this work.

 

Thurling has served on RTCA SC-203 and is now a member of SC-228 working with the FAA UAS Integration Office, major UAS Stakeholders, and the wider the UAS community to develop the Minimum Operational Performance Standards for UAS integration into the National Airspace.