Dassault Aviation's completed its first fully autonomous demonstration flight on 30 June near Toulouse, France. The AVE-D's flight consisted of an entirely automated sequence starting with its roll from its parking spot, to runway alignment, take-off, in-flight manoeuvres, landing, braking and moving back to the parking apron. The AVE-D first flew on 18 July 2000 and its AVE-C tailless version first flew in June 2003. The AVE vehicles are a family of scale-model UAVs for Dassault to validate technologies such as stealth and autonomy for such programmes as the European Neuron unmanned combat air vehicle demonstrator.
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