Rockwell Collins has been awarded the third phase of a damage tolerance contract by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Under the contract, Rockwell Collins will demonstrate completely autonomous takeoff, recovery from extreme damage and failure, and autonomous landing of an unmanned subscale F/A-18. Additional flight tests will be conducted on an operational Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS). Over the course of approximately 15 months, Rockwell Collins will demonstrate its full Damage Tolerance and advanced controls capabilities. Flight tests will demonstrate increasing damage to both the subscale F/A-18 and an operational UAS, including the failure of control surfaces and parts of the wing, as well as loss of vertical and horizontal tail surfaces. The flight tests will also include an “engine-out” condition followed by automatic adaptive recovery and emergency automatic landing.

According to DARPA Program Manager James McCormick, “This next phase of the Damage Tolerance program will demonstrate that technology exists to reliably control UAS operating under the most challenging conditions such as extreme damage, upset or failure.” Damage Tolerance Phase III follows Phases I and II, which were completed in April 2008. In Phase II, the technology demonstrated an aircraft could survive catastrophic wing damage, recover its baseline performance, and safely land – all autonomously.