First public UAS flight demonstration in Sweden – CybAero successfully demonstrated flying an unmanned helicopter in central Stockholm

For the first time in the history of Swedish aviation an Unmanned Aerial System was demonstrated to the public venue on January 8th 2008. The event happen to coincide with the 99th anniversary of the first motorized flight in Sweden, which took place at the very same place.

It was the Linköping-based company CybAero that brought their rotary wing helicopter platform APID 55 to Gärdet, an ancient military training ground turned park in central Stockholm. The team from CybAero showed representatives from media, the defence- and aviationindustry together with finance analysts - the cutting edge unmanned aerial vehicle research combined with the CybAero autonomous flying unmanned helicopter design.

– Our unmanned helicopter is one of the few stand-by UAS operative systems in the world, capable of both civilian and military missions, said Mikael Hult, CEO of CybAero.

Since 1997, when the first fully autonomous flight was conducted, much effort has since then been put into commercialization of APID 55.

In 2004, a contract was signed with the United Arab Emirates’ Armed Forces including delivery of seven APID 55 UAS systems, primarily destined for border surveillance.

– Using an unmanned autonomous system - allows operators to perform the dull, dirty and dangerous missions in a safer, less expensive and more environmentally friendly way, CybAero´s CEO Hult continues.

Future business opportunities for UAS amounts to $16 B - according to market research. The helicopter is part of a light and compact aerial system designed to carry various cameras and sensors for applications like border- and coastsurveillance, search & rescue missions, disaster management, ISR tasks and environmental survey, to name a few.

During 2008 CybAero together with United States Naval Research Laboratory will be continuing the development and commercialization of the new unmanned helicopter Vantage, a Wankel engined VTOL UAV with nose-mounted payload and electrically driven ducted tail rotor.