Defence

BAE Systems will this month resume flight testing of its Herti 1B endurance unmanned air vehicle at the Woomera test range in central Australia, while the company will also explore the platform's use within mixed traffic airspace from mid-year.

The new campaign will expand Herti's flight envelope from the phase conducted from Woomera late last year, says Herman Claesen, BAE's business development executive for military utility UAVs. While this was successful in assessing the UAV's autonomous image collection and exploitation sensor suite, he says: "We didn't manage to do as much as we wanted to in terms of expanding the envelope."

Flights from West Sale airbase in south-east Australia will, meanwhile, start around mid-year at ranges up to 28km (15nm) from base and altitudes up to 6,000ft (1,830m), says Heidi Fourier, UAV operations head for BAE Systems Australia.