On January 17, the American defense research agency DARPA announced that the X-61A Gremlins drone designed by Dynetics made its first flight last November, dropped by a C-130 Hercules. For practical and safety reasons, it is not uncommon to see an experimental device, with or without a pilot, launched by a transport aircraft. In the case of the X-61A, however, the launch mode was an integral part of the flight tests, the Gremlins being a demonstrator of reusable drone launched and recovered in flight.
The X-61 program stems directly from a initiative launched in 2014 by DARPA and aiming to develop a “flying aircraft carrier” from a Hercules cargo plane airframe. This required developing, on the one hand, a system for implementing and recovering drones on the C-130 Hercules, and on the other hand, the recoverable mini-drones themselves. For DARPA, the idea is then to be able to operate unmanned aircraft from a safe distance, by giving reactivity and operational flexibility to mini-drones, often too limited by their speed and autonomy when launched from floor.
An old idea brought up to date
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