Open-access content [Tanya Weaver](/authors/tanya-weaver) — Tue 11 Mar 2025
**Sikorsky has successfully flown its drone prototype that lifts off vertically like a helicopter but cruises like an airplane.**
The battery-powered, 52kg uncrewed aerial system (UAS) features what Sikorsky, an arm of defence firm Lockheed Martin, calls “rotor-blown wing” design.
This design essentially directs the backwash from the twin propellers or rotors over the wing surfaces, reducing drag and enabling lift by increasing the velocity of the air.
The vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) prototype, which features a 10.3ft (three metre) composite wingspan, has been put through a number of flight tests to assess its operational stability and manoeuvrability when transitioning between flight modes.
In January 2025, it successfully completed more than 40 take-offs and landings.
During these test fights, the aircraft performed 30 transitions between helicopter and airplane modes. In horizontal flight mode, the aircraft reached a top cruise speed of 86 knots.
Simultaneous wind tunnel tests were conducted on a 1:1 scale model, providing valuable validation of the newly developed control laws by correlating them with real-world experimental data.
Igor Cherepinsky, director of Sikorsky Innovations, said: “Our rotor-blown wing has demonstrated the control power and unique handling qualities necessary to transition repeatedly and predictably from a hover to high-speed wing-borne cruise flight, and back again.
“New control laws were required for this transition manoeuvre to work seamlessly and efficiently. The data indicates we can operate from pitching ships’ decks and unprepared ground when scaled to much larger sizes.”
Applications for such an aircraft could include search and rescue, firefighting monitoring, humanitarian response and pipeline surveillance.
There is also the potential to scale the VTOL design to larger sizes requiring hybrid-electric propulsion.
Applications for these large variants of the design could include long-range intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and piloted drone teaming (crewed/uncrewed teaming) missions.
Rich Benton, vice-president and general manager of Sikorsky, said: “Combining helicopter and airplane flight characteristics onto a flying wing reflects Sikorsky’s drive to innovate next-generation VTOL UAS aircraft that can fly faster and farther than traditional helicopters.”
In other Lockheed Martin news, at the end of last year the firm revealed that its [missile-warning satellite](https://eandt.theiet.org/2024/12/11/lockheed-martins-large-missile-warning-satellite-track-2025-launch) is on track for a 2025 launch.
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