The thing about arrows is, they’re supposed to inflict damage.
That’s something that the maker of the Arrow, the kit-plane turned UAV test bed, is currently looking into.
A company official working the Neany Inc. display area at the Air Force Association Air & Space Symposium in Maryland on Monday wouldn’t say what kind of sharp point they plan to put on the Arrow. Or even which of the U.S. armed forces is the interested customer.
“Just say armaments,” Mark Dingle of Neany's production and manufacturing division told DoD Buzz, explaining that he was not at liberty to talk specifics.
The Arrow has been in the defense inventory via Special Operations Command for about five years. The 19-foot-long Arrow is based on a light-weight kit plane, a Titan Aircraft Tornado 912, according to information on Neany’s Web site. It has a wingspan of 23’ or 26’ feet and weighs, empty, about 900 lbs. Special Operations Command wanted such an aircraft for testing various payloads and the Navy managed the program buys in 2004. Since then the planes have been used operationally for surveillance in Iraq and, come January, will deploy to Afghanistan, as well, a Neany spokeswoman at the AFA said.
And sometime soon, according to Dingle, the Arrow may be a killing weapon.
