BAE Systems Mantis

The Mantis is a British unmanned combat air vehicle technology demonstrator from BAE Systems, developed from late 2007 with the Ministry of Defence, Rolls-Royce, QinetiQ, GE Aviation, L-3 Wescam, Meggitt and Lola as partners. It is a twin-engine turboprop aircraft with a wingspan of about 22 m, comparable in class to the MQ-9 Reaper, and a maximum takeoff mass of 9,000 kg. The first phase vehicle is powered by two Rolls-Royce Model 250 turboprops and was meant to show BAE Systems rapid prototyping and to evaluate autonomous control, with at least 24 hours of endurance and the ability to plot its own course. A large dome on the nose is not a cockpit but houses an upward-facing satellite communications system. A mockup appeared at Farnborough in 2008, the prototype first flew on 21 October 2009 at Woomera in South Australia and it was flight tested in the United Kingdom in 2013. It was the basis of the abandoned BAE and Dassault Telemos.