Seagull unmaned flyingboat

[rousseau]

Several years ago, US navy lauched an unmaned sea-plane project, called Seagull. Do you remember it and do you have more information?

 

[Grey Havoc]

USN ONR (Office of Naval Research) program, IIRC. If it is the same one I'm thinking of, I remember reading about it in 2005 or thereabouts. I think it was still going as of 2008, but I'm not a 100% sure.

 

[Apophenia]

Sounds like the Oregon Iron Works (OIW) Sea Scout Unmanned Tactical Seaplane. If so, it wasn't ONR but a NAVAIR Small Business Innovative Research incentive (although Wikipedia says that Sea Scout was funded by DARPA as part of a 2005 Vought study).

OIW Sea Scout had a 38hp Wankel rotary engine, weighed 300 lbs, and carried a 25 pound payload. The airframe was based on the wheeled Daedalus/Geneva Aerospace Dakota UAV.
http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/app4/dakota.html

It seems there were variations on the theme. As launched in 2006, the Sea Scout had 10 ft wings with endplate tip floats. Later it sprouted 17 ft wings with outboard dihedral and more conventional tip floats on struts at mid span.

http://www.flightglobal.com/assets/getAsset.aspx?ItemID=13002
http://www.oregoniron.com/wp-content/gallery/marine/unmanned-air-vehicle-uav-sea-plane.jpg

 

[rousseau]

I have no idea about what size it would be, but I am pretty sure that flying boat was ship-based layout, and its engine position just like this above.
Its shape looks streamlined indeed, very beautiful.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Thanks for the correction. I must have mixed it up with another ONR funded seaplane UAV.

 

[Apophenia]

Grey Havoc: SBIR grants were trendy at the time and a chance for industry leaders to 'manage' applications and then funding for small outfits and academic institutions. I wouldn't be surprised if contemporary UAV SBIRs were handled by the ONR, DARPA, and NAVAIR!