A 3D printed aircraft was successfully launched off the front of a Royal Navy warship and landed safely on a Dorset beach. HMS Mersey...
A 3D printed aircraft was successfully launched off the front of a Royal Navy warship and landed safely on a Dorset beach.
HMS Mersey provided the perfect platform for the University of Southampton to test out their SULSA unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).
Weighing 3kg and measuring 1.5m the airframe was created on a 3D printer using laser sintered nylon and catapulted off HMS Mersey into the Wyke Regis Training Facility in Weymouth, before landing on Chesil Beach.
The flight, which covered roughly 500 metres, lasted less than five minutes but demonstrated the potential use of small lightweight UAVs, which can be easily launched at sea, in a maritime environment.
The aircraft carried a small video camera to record its flight and Southampton researchers monitored the flight from their UAV control van with its on-board video-cameras.
