Piaggio Aero Industries has unveiled the Piaggio Aero P.1HH “Hammer-Head” unmanned aerial system (UAS) at the Paris Air Show. A new state-of-the-art unmanned aerial system (UAS), the Piaggio Aero P.1HH HammerHead has been designed for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions whose combination of performance and operational characteristics is at the very top end of the UAS MALE category.

The P.1HH HammerHead technological demonstrator was designed and built in less than one year and it has already successfully completed low speed taxi tests demonstrating Piaggio Aero’s ability to deliver an efficient UAV platform integrating state-of-the-art Selex ES SkyISTAR mission management system.

The P.1HH HammerHead development programme proceeds with the demonstration/validation phase through an extensive campaign of laboratory and ground tests aimed at supporting the first flight. After the first engine start and the runway taxi that took place on February 14, 2013, at an Italian Air Force base, the programme has now entered the final phase of test where, the aircraft systems in flight configuration will be tested at all levels in accordance with the build-up approach taken on the UAS.