US Army's LEMV successfully completes maiden flight

LEMV is a persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platform that flew for more than 90 minutes over Lakehurst Naval Air Station, New Jersey, on 7 August.

Described as the world’s largest and most persistent lighter-than-air optionally piloted aircraft, LEMV was designed, built and flown in 24 months by prime contractor Northrop Grumman and an industry team that included Cranfield-based Hybrid Air Vehicles, which was responsible for air vehicle design.

In use, LEMV can reportedly operate in partnership with other land-, sea- and air-based assets, providing unmanned surveillance of up to 21 days at up to 20,000ft (6,096m) and up to five days manned at 16,000ft.

According to a statement, the endurance ability of the LEMV system comes from a design that is built around Hybrid Air Vehicles’ HAV304 aircraft design and Northrop Grumman’s open system architecture design, which provides a modular and flexible payload capability along with room for mission expansion and growth.

Northrop Grumman was responsible for the overall system development, integration and implementation of the open system architecture, unmanned flight control software, mission system flight and ground operations and maintenance and field support for worldwide operations.

Team member Warwick Mills was responsible for fabric development, ILC Dover for hull fabrication and seaming, AAI Corporation for air vehicle control through its Universal Ground Control Station and SAIC for full-motion video exploitation.