AeroVironment Awarded Contract for Development of Global Observer Stratospheric Unmanned Aircraft System

Over a year later, way past the initial delivery date of 2008, AV has not produced a single GO craft never mind flight testing it. By the time they do get around to their first flight demonstration, I fear it will be too little too late.

At current, more experienced companies with greater funding resources such as Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, General Atomics and lots of others are already working towards making UAVs and have done so already.

Since AV is so slow at getting anything done, I would not be at all surprised if they lose the program to someone else. I was informed that most of the IP was agreed to be turned over to the customer as part of the contract. That means that the customer owns the design rights and could have someone else make it if they didn't want to work with AV. So, even though AV may build a prototype, who knows whether or not the customer will have production built by someone else that has more experience.

It won't be long until other companies make the same thing for less money and quicker and more reliable than AV due to having more experience than Aerovironment does in producing large scale crafts like GO.

Remember, the first HELIOS that they made crashed into the Pacific due to a motor failure. That motor was built by AV. They don't apply or believe in reliability testing for any of their products. They don't incorporate EVT, DVT etc etc for any of their products. They feel it's a waste of money in fact, the only testing done is to prove design requirements and performance but, not for reliability. I know this for a fact.