Test Flight Of Heliwing Ends In Crash

An unmanned, experimental Heliwing aircraft was destroyed when it lost power and crashed Tuesday near Moses Lake, The Boeing Co. said.

There were no injuries.

Boeing has been developing the twin-engine craft, which can take off and land like a helicopter and fly horizontally, for 16 months, spokesman Bob Smith of the company’s Defense & Space Group said.

The craft crashed during a test flight at the Grant County Airport Tuesday morning. The cause is under investigation, Smith said.

The Heliwing prototype is a computerized single-wing aircraft. The 8-foot-long, twin-engine craft with a 17-foot wingspan has potential as a surveillance drone in battle zones.

The Department of Defense, which recently submitted a contract for additional test flights later this month, will be consulted on whether another prototype should be built, or whether enough data has been collected, Smith said.

The U.S. Navy and others have expressed interest in the Heliwing, but the aircraft is being developed and tested with Boeing Co. money, Smith said. The program’s cost is proprietary, he said.

The prototype first flew vertically April 27. Since then, the plane’s ability to transition to horizontal flight has been tested, Smith said.

The plane could be flown either by radio signals from the ground, or by programmed routes, Smith said.