Aerosonde HQ

Aerosonde HQ combines a fixed-wing uncrewed aircraft with a hybrid-quadrotor system for vertical takeoff and landing. It can deploy from a confined land or maritime site, climb vertically and transition to wing-borne flight for surveillance, communications relay, electronic-warfare or customer-selected payload missions. Runway-independent recovery removes the launcher and net used by fixed-wing Aerosonde configurations and reduces the equipment needed at a forward operating location.

The original HQ configuration flew at 45 to 65 knots and provided ten hours of endurance with a multi-intelligence payload, with a 10,500-foot density-altitude ceiling in that load state. A Lycoming EL-005 heavy-fuel engine powered cruise, and a four-person crew could unpack and launch the palletised system in under 20 minutes. Later Mk. 4.7 and Mk. 4.8 HQ aircraft have their own payload, endurance and ceiling specifications, so delivered capability follows the selected generation.