Ramona Adams
Textron‘s weapon and sensor systems business and Thales have launched a Fury guided glide weapon from a tactical unmanned aircraft system to engage static vehicle targets as part of a test at the U.S. Army‘s Yuma Proving Ground.
The team released Fury from a Textron-built Shadow TUAS, after which the weapon performed a global positioning system guided fly-out maneuver, transitioned to a semi-active laser guided terminal engagement and hit a static vehicle target, Textron said Monday.
Brian Sinkiewicz, senior vice president and general manager of Textron’s weapon and sensor systems business, said the test demonstrated Fury’s GPS and SAL guidance features from 8,000 feet.
He added the test also checks Fury’s potentially interoperability with the Shadow TUAS as well as other UAS or light attack aircraft.
The joint Textron and Thales team began to develop Fury in 2014 and plans to market the weapon system for U.S. domestic and international customers, Textron noted.
Fury features tri-mode fuzing for impact, height of burst and delay, as well as a GPS-aided inertial navigation system with SAL Seeker terminal guidance to engage stationary and moving targets.
