Military

Army ‘hoverbike’ prototype with 300-pound payload capacity passes key test

The U.S. Army with its partners in the Marine Corps and U.K.-based Mallory Aeronautics have successfully tested a “hoverbike” prototype with a payload capacity of 300 pounds.

Military officials recently watched engineers put a prototype for the Joint Tactical Aerial Resupply Vehicle (JTARV) through a battery of tests at U.S. Army Research Laboratory Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. The consensus: Engineers are well on their way to producing a vehicle that can transport troops or supplies low to the ground or at thousands of feet in the air at 60 miles per hour.

“This project was successful because we went from a concept development to an engineering evaluation,” Ernesto Garcia Lopez, Innovation Program Manager of Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center in Picatinny, New Jersey, told the U.S. Army Research Laboratory on Jan. 13. “It was done in collaboration with various government agencies [and] industry in a very short time.”