The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has officially named its latest flying-wing drone the XRQ-73. Stealthy by design, DARPA hopes to fly test the new drone later this year.
The new drone is being developed under DARPA’s Series Hybrid Electric Propulsion AiRcraft Demonstration program. In addition to the official press release, DARPA released a rendering of the drone’s design.notes this rendering has some interesting features. The first is its tailless flying wing design. The wings appear on the same plane as the lower airfoil and taper to a clipped wing tip. It also lacks the four external nacelle engines seen in the XRQ-72A.
This was a major focus of the original GHO effort, which aimed to develop a hybrid-electric design without the historical limitations of an all-electric propulsion system. It is also a good bet that the XRQ-73 is of a similar grain.“The idea behind a DARPA X-prime program is to take emerging technologies and burn down system-level integration risks to quickly mature a new missionized long endurance aircraft design that can be fielded quickly,” said Steve Komadina, SHEPARD program manager.