Lockheed Martin Cormorant

The Cormorant was a tailsitter unmanned aircraft project at Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works research facility, named for the diving bird because it was meant to be launched from a submarine. Researchers had the idea of storing a drone in the large missile tubes of the United States Navy's Ohio-class submarines, from which it would float to the surface, unfold its folded wings and take off with the help of rockets. It was to give all-weather reconnaissance, battle damage assessment, armed reconnaissance and special operations support, and the submarine would slip away while the aircraft rose and later send it rendezvous coordinates so a robotic vehicle could retrieve it. To survive the pressure at a launch depth of about 46 metres it was built of titanium with foam in its empty spaces and an interior of pressurized inert gas. DARPA funded tests of models and systems that finished by September 2006, but the development contract was cancelled in 2008 because of budget cuts, and it never flew.