Lockheed Martin [LMT] said May 6 that it has developed Desert Hawk 4, a longer-endurance variant of its hand-launched Desert Hawk 3 unmanned aerial system (UAS).

Desert Hawk 4 can stay airborne for over 2.5 hours, up from the 1.5-hour flight time of Desert Hawk 3, which the British Army has operated for the past decade, including in combat. Compared to Desert Hawk 3, Desert Hawk 4 is also easier to use thanks to a simplified ground control station, Lockheed Martin said.

Lockheed Martin unveils Desert Hawk UAS variant
Lockheed Martin unveils Desert Hawk UAS variant

Desert Hawk 4 is designed to provide day and night full-motion video for military uses, such as route reconnaissance, targeting support and threat detection, and for civil and commercial applications, including firefighting, pipeline monitoring and search and rescue.  

Separately, Lockheed Martin said it has entered into an agreement with Safran‘s [SAF] Robonic Ltd Oy to produce, maintain and support the Finnish firm’s OHTO UAS launcher for customers in the United States and Canada and for all Lockheed Martin Fury UAS worldwide. Compared to Fury’s current launcher, OHTO “reduces the number of operators from three or four to one, and also cuts the set-up time to fewer than 10 minutes,” said Jay McConville, business development director for unmanned integrated solutions at Lockheed Martin Mission Systems and Training.