Meet the Grasshopper: AFRL’s Autonomously Navigated Glider
Watch this video to learn more about the Grasshopper, a cost-efficient, air-dropped, autonomously navigated glider that delivers material to operators on the ground. The Grasshopper team is accelerating the capability timeline by establishing a close interaction between AFRL and AFSOC users that facilitates immediate customer feedback and rapid flight testing.
Transcript
00:00:06 driven by a Warf fighter request for standoff cargo delivery grasshopper is the Air Force research laboratory's lowcost answer for delivering cargo where other aircraft cannot grasshopper is a 100% autonomous standoff glider capable of delivering hundreds of pounds of cargo into challenging environments when launched from another aircraft it leverages lowcost manufacturing
00:00:28 techniques to keep production cost at about 4 $4,000 per vehicle to provide an asymmetric capability for cargo delivery afl's Aerospace Systems director at test data for small turbine engines was used to assist in engine selection after engine selection the director was able to provide two small turbine engines to the Builder for fitment and bench testing grasshopper rapidly transitioned
00:00:52 from a research effort to a fielded capability due to close cooperation between AFL the Builder and its users afrl Center for Rapid Innovation received requirements in November of 2020 and quickly responded with the first operational flight test of grasshopper in October of 2021 dugway Proving Ground Utah the close interaction between afrl and the users
00:01:14 allowed for immediate customer feedback rapid flight evaluations in real world employment of the grasshopper after the glider was successfully tested and operationally deployed multiple customers requested increased range leading to the development of dragonfly a turbine power power variant of The Proven grasshopper airframe the dragonfly research development test and
00:01:35 evaluation effort is currently underway afrl provides our nation and our war Fighters with Advanced Technologies leading to Reliable effective and integrated capabilities for use today and tomorrow