A flyable/roadable vehicle that provides the warfighter terrain-independent mobility

AVX Aircraft Company has responded to a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) seeking designs for a tactical fly-drive vehicle named Transformer (TX). According to DARPA, the objective of the programme is to demonstrate a four-person flyable/roadable vehicle that provides the warfighter terrain-independent mobility. This presents unprecedented capability to avoid traditional and asymmetrical threats while avoiding road obstructions.

AVX Aircraft Company President and Chief Engineer Troy Gaffey commented on the proposal saying, “The ability of AVX aircraft to respond to the proposal demonstrates the versatility of the AVX configuration. The design is very adaptable and can be configured for many different size and types of vehicles. The efficiency of the AVX design provides flexibility and performance to support both ground and aerial movement required for the TX design.”

The objective is to demonstrate a tactical four-person vehicle that can fly and drive on command. The design is needed to be manually driven on the ground like an SUV. It rapidly reconfigures between ground and flight configuration, vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) capability, cruise speed equivalent to a light aircraft and automated takeoff/landing flight control.