AFRC2018-0217-12
NASA’s Ikhana aircraft, based at the agency’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, takes off on June 12, 2018, for the agency’s first large-scale, remotely-piloted aircraft flight in the national airspace without a safety chase aircraft. The successful flight moved the United States one step closer to normalizing unmanned aircraft operations in the airspace used by commercial and private pilots.
Flying these large remotely-piloted aircraft over the United States opens the doors to all types of services, from monitoring and fighting forest fires, to providing new emergency search and rescue operations. The technology in this aircraft could, at some point, be scaled down for use in other general aviation aircraft.
June 12, 2018
NASA Photo / Ken Ulbrich