Aurora Completes Surrogate UAV Contract

(Manassas, VA., March 1, 2010) -- Aurora Flight Sciences has completed its first Diamond DA42M pay-per-view contract to MISTIC, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of The MATRIX Group, as a surrogate unmanned aerial system (UAS) platform above Roswell, NM.

The Diamond DA42M is made in Weiner Neustaet, Austria by Diamond Aircraft Industries. The DA42M is a twin-engine aircraft that seats four people and its diesel engines run on a range of heavy fuels. In July 2009, Diamond Aircraft received Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Certification for the Austro Engine AE300 Powerplant.

Aurora provided a fully integrated DA42M UAS look-alike system consisting of the FLIR SYSTEMS Star Safire III and the L3 West Communication CMDL Data Link. The Aurora Flight Sciences team completed over 80 flight hours during the program including two intercontinental ferry flights between Europe and the USA.

Once on-site at the training facility in Roswell, NM, Aurora completed over 30 hours as a UAS intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance surrogate providing real time full motion video to train special forces teams on the ground. All the training operations were flown at night during a six day period. All systems including the DA42M, FLIR EO/IR and L3 Data Link performed flawlessly with no sorties missed or delayed.

In a post event industry day hosted by Aurora Flight Sciences to celebrate the success, Mr. William C. Stettinius, President of MISTIC, Inc., said, "The DA42 exceeded our expectations and set a new standard for endurance while supporting training on our ranges. Other manned aircraft that we have worked with as surrogate UAS platforms lack the DA42's capability for persistent stare, economy of operation, and flexibility. The Aurora crew strove to satisfy our customer's requirements and realistically mimicked actual ISR assets."

Source : Aurora Flight Sciences