 At a small airfield near Washington D.C., an innovative group of engineers is designing and building futuristic aircraft that are catching the attention of Army researchers. Aurora Flight Sciences in Manassas, Virginia, hosted a visit from U.S. Army Research Laboratory Aerospace Engineers August 15th. Aurora is focused on the development and manufacturing of advanced unmanned systems and aerospace vehicles. The things that Aurora knows how to do in aircraft, aerodynamics, aviation, propulsion are a really good fit to the Army's needs in terms of performance range, payload, those kinds of performance characteristics that the Army needs. The Army is interested in building a collaborative relationship with the company to advance its goals in vertical lift platforms for the future. The Army hopes to achieve high speed, high endurance and high payload capability. The DOD has already invested in Aurora's unique technologies. In 2016, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, awarded Aurora a contract to build a prototype of its lightning strike aircraft, an unmanned hybrid propulsion aircraft capable of vertical takeoff and landing. It's going to fundamentally change how we look at rotorcraft. So in addition to its very innovative, unique design, it has several subsystem technologies that in themselves would lead to huge performance gains, or even for traditional rotorcraft. The engineers also saw another Aurora project for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, designed to create an autonomous flight system that can be retrofitted to existing aircraft. I think we're best known for unmanned aviation in particular, and we're integrating advanced aircraft designs with autonomy to create new kinds of capabilities for the nation. This was sort of a follow-up visit for us to find out a little more about the programs as well as to see some of the projects that have been carrying out. The next step is to explore a CREDA, or Cooperative Research and Development Agreement, an agreement between a government agency and private company to work together on R&D. So collaboration is really key to make big impacts these days as the challenges are huge, resources are limited, and I'm quite positive that a really fruitful partnership will be established and we'll jointly make some advancements in these different technology areas. From Manassas, Virginia, David McNally, ARL TV.