It looks like a furious Cylon, it subsists on croissants and lattes, and now it’s successfully on its way to blowing things up: the European nEUROn drone just made a giant leap.
The 12m wingspan UAV — built through a partnership between France, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Switzerland and Greece — had its first successful takeoff over the weekend. But it isn’t ever going to be sent into a real combat zone. It’s a concept design — but it will, The Aviationist reports, spawn real killer drones that go into full production.
And the nEUROn isn’t going to just fly around and look scary: once its operators are able to scoot it around without crashing, The Aviationist says it’ll head to “Perdasdefogu range in Italy, where its stealthiness and capability to drop PGM (Precision Guided Munitions) through the internal weapon bay, will be evaluated.” Bombs away. You didn’t think an entire continent was going to let us be the only ones with sci-fi guns, did you? [The Aviationist]