While all eyes at Farnborough are on the mockup of Bell Helicopter's 609 Commercial Tiltrotor, the company is talking to all who will listen about a junior, unmanned version that flew earlier this year.

The Eagle Eye Tactical VTOL UAV has just finished a flawless 50-hour flight test program at the Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona.

In less than 90 days after its first flight on March 6, the single Eagle Eye flew 55.5 hours and made 43 landings in tests which have expanded the aircraft's envelope and proven its advertised performance and technology maturity claims. During the tests, the envelope was expanded to over 14,600 feet and more than 200 kt True Air Speed in level cruise flight, while carrying 210 pounds of payload plus mission fuel. Maintenance requirements (other than pre-flight checks) were almost nonexistent.

The Eagle Eye executed all applicable demonstration objectives, and expanded the aircraft's flight envelope substantially.

The demonstrator is a seven-eighths scale prototype aircraft built with more than 70% off-the-shelf, man-rated helicopter and common hardware parts. This strategy resulted in a very reliable aircraft and a very low maintenance requirement of less than one maintenance man-hour per flight hour, according to a Bell spokesman.

Eagle Eye uses a highly automated, command based flight control system, which is fully integrated with two inertial navigation systems, GPS, air data sensors, and three altimeters. A built-in test, capable of exercising all critical flight control system elements, is included. The Tactical Control System (TCS) compatible ground control station includes a digitized map with multiple waypoint following as well as an easy to operate graphical man-machine interface for control and health monitoring of the aircraft.