In its quest for ever more advanced means to wage war, the Pentagon commissioned a truck with vertical takeoff and landing (or VTOL) capabilities to be built. The task was taken up by an aerospace company based in El Segundo, CA, “specializing in research and development of next-generation military and civil vehicle technologies.”

The result, after many months and scale models (one of which you’ll see in a video below), is the Black Knight Transformer, a rudimentary-looking design that seems to have been built out of parts they found lying around, and a big glass pyramid at the front.

However, the look of the thing is not important, but its capabilities and possible multirole use is. The demonstrator vehicle they created was able to lift off the ground up to a height of 10 ft (~3 m) and in the end will be able to carry up to 2,000 kg or 4,400 lbs and still lift off; it can reach a maximum ground driving speed of 70 mph (112 km/h) and can be flown as high as 10,000 ft or 3,050 m.

The company has also created a mini-Knight that is basically the same, but smaller and with less than half of the full-sized model’s payload capacity.

By Andrei Nedelea

Story References: Popsci

PHOTO GALLERY

AT-Black-Knight-1AT-Black-Knight-2AT-Black-Knight-3AT-Black-Knight-4AT-Black-Knight-5AT-Black-Knight-6AT-Black-Knight-7


VIDEO