The US Special Operations Command - SOCOM, America's secret military elite - is to double its fleet of robot whispercopters in coming years, according to reports.
It has also been revealed that eight of the high tech droid kill-choppers will soon go operational as surveillance craft at "an undisclosed location" overseas.
The news comes from Flight International, reporting on an interview with Major Scott Beall of SOCOM. Major Beall is the secret supertroopers' programme manager for the Boeing A160T unmanned helicopter.
The A160T, as regular Reg readers will recall, is remarkable not so much for being unmanned - there were already other robotic helicopters on offer. Rather, the A160T stands out for its unusual variable-speed rotor tech.
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Normal choppers spin their blades at a fixed rate, which simplifies engineering but limits performance. Not so the A160T, which can whirl its rotors fast in the hover but bring revs down in the cruise. Boeing say that this lets it hover out of ground effect* at impressive altitudes - as much as 20,000 feet above sea level, perhaps - and gives it excellent endurance. The A160T is also supposed to be substantially quieter than a normal helicopter.
