HydroTac
New Heliman
Location: UK
| APID 55 Crash During Pakistan Navy Trials at SeaSome of you folks wanted details of the subject crash. Here they are. Cybaero has been promoting APID 55 VTOL UAV to Pakistan Navy. Navy asked them to give trials of the APID 55 off a Navy frigate during the month of April 2008. This was despite the fact that the Cybaero team had never flown off a frigate or even a ship, the APID 55 is not designed for the harsh environment of the Arabian Sea and in their proposal to the Navy Cybaero had shown serious reservation to fly the APID 55 off a ship. However not wanting to miss a chance to fly off a ship, APID 55 was flown off a Navy frigate (on the request of the local agent of Cybaero in Pakistan) near the coast of Karachi. Immediately after the said flight off the ship heli-deck problems started because 20 minutes into the flight the bird lost all of its signal (video and control) with the Control Station established on board the frigate. This was followed by declaration of an emergency by the flight crew in which the APID 55 was automatically directed to the emergency landing site but it completely went astray and fell into a riverine well short of the emergency landing site. Later the wreckage of the APID 55 (which the Cybaero team had brought in as APID 60) was handed over by the PN Marines to the company.
Naturally, the APID 55 UAV trials were a complete disaster and failure for the Pakistan Navy as well. |
