Flying Humvee Concept Getting Closer to Reality

The United States military has moved one step closer toward realizing its goal of developing a flying vehicle that combines aspects of a helicopter, plane and armored truck, awarding a a $3.05 million contract to aerospace and defense company AAI.

This is part of the Transformer Vehicle program run by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to demonstrate a "fly-drive" vehicle. DARPA, as it's commonly called, serves as the central research and development organization for the U.S. Department of Defense.

The idea essentially is to produce a mashup: a four-seat vehicle that can hug the road like a sports utility vehicle but is strong and nimble to the point where it can safely navigate past hazards - man made and natural - and then function like an aircraft with vertical take-off capacity. According to Aviation Week, "AAI's design is based on the slowed-rotor/compound (SR/C) helicopter technology being developed jointly with Cartercopter. SR/C is essentially an autogyro in which the rotor can be slowed as forward speed increases, offloading lift to the wing to allow the vehicle to fly faster than a conventional helicopter."

At this point, the TX program is still in proof-of-concept mode. A few years ago, DARPA similarly tried to invite contractors to bring a flying vehicle to market. Can AAI make good on its task? After DARPA first put the project up for bid earlier this spring, Steven Reid, vice president of unmanned aircraft systems at AAI, said in an interview that when his team first heard of the proposal, "I have to admit...we scratched our heads and asked: Is this real?" But after a closer look, he added, the concept meshes with existing engineering ideas about how to combine aspects of manned and unmanned aircraft.