Curiously, there are many occasions that at HWLibre we have talked about drones, unfortunately many times we forget certain models, specifically the fixed wing ones, which despite the fact that it seems the opposite, are much more used on a day-to-day basis than other versions. . This is precisely the type of drone that I want to talk to you about today, even for DARPA has developed a unique platform for takeoff and landing baptized as side arm.
One of the big problems that DARPA has with this type of drones, the fixed-wing ones, is that although they do have solutions to get them to take off in a quite limited space, the problem, apparently, they have it when it comes to getting them to land, something for which, as you can see in the video located just below these lines, it seems to be solved with SideArm.
SideArm is the easiest way DARPA believes they can catch fixed-wing drones in mid-flight.
The idea of SideArm is basically catch the drone in flight using the same system used by military aircraft that land on an aircraft carrier except that it incorporates a kind of network that is used to stop the movement of the drone when it is hooked by the cable. Undoubtedly, a product that has many advantages, although, in turn, it must be installed anywhere where we want the drone to land in a limited space of land.
At the moment SideArm is just an idea, perhaps a bit daring, of what DARPA is looking for, an idea that can seem very interesting in some respects and a bit complicated to carry out in another. We will see if the US agency finally decides or not to install this type of invention on its aircraft carriers, military bases ...