The Snark - the meanest VTOL UAV on the planet

Meet the Snark – an Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle of immense capability that demonstrates just how far the breed has come in such a short period of time. Constructed mainly of Carbon Fibre and Kevlar, the Snark is light and fast (280 km/h), quiet (special rotor blades make it extremely quiet ), virtually invisible to radar or infrared detetection (it recycles its exhaust gases and emits little heat) and can carry a payload of 680kg, offering the ability to pack both massive firepower (enough to sink a ship) and surveillance equipment (such as high res infrared cameras with a magnification of 7500). But wait, there’s more, and this is the clincher. The Snark is the first UAV that runs on diesel fuel, which means it can be easily integrated into any military force – current UAVs require their own special fuel supply to be transported with them whereas the entire US Army plans to run on a single one fuel - diesel. Last and probably most importantly, the Snark can stay airborne for 24 hours at a time, offering an unprecedented loiter time for a machine of this capability.

The Snark is built by New Zealand-based commercial helicopter manufacturer TGR Helicorp and seems likely to put the staunchly independent country on the armaments industry map in a big way as it offers capabilities far beyond any current VTOL UAV.

Apart from the obvious autonomous long-range attack and surveillance capabilities, the payload and stealth aspects of the Snark make it ideal for a range of search, rescue and medical evacuation operations as the Snark can carry two fully equipped soldiers into or out of the battle zone. Clearly, under such circumstance, the Snark’s stealth qualities will be very useful. The Snark is designed to recycles its exhaust gases and consequently emits very little heat, making targeting the Snark with a heat-seeking missile very difficult. The company is enhancing this stealth aspect with specially developed rotor blades to reduce noise. “The Snark can’t be heard more than 250 yards away,” says Rogers..

And the Snark’s remarkable range and speed give it the ability to cover vast territories making it ideal for coast guard duties – not so important to isolated New Zealand, but ideal for its neighbour Australia with its massive coastline.

The Snark is equally as mean and nasty as the creature from which it took its name – the mythical Snark in a Lewis Carroll poem. Already in its third iteration, the machine has developed its immense capabilities at a rapid rate.

“The Snark Mk I and Mk II will be museum pieces,” says TGR Helicorp’s Trevor Rogers. “The Snark MkI had an Australian Jabiru engine which we had both turbocharged and fuel injected and developed our own aircooling system and were getting more than 200 horsepower in a vertical engine format with the blessing of Jabiru’s Phil Ainsworth who is a good friend of mine.”

“The Mk I was giving us eight hours of range,”said Rogers. “The only problem was that it ran on AVGAS and the military want everything to run on a single fuel. So we made the decision to go with a heavy fuel engine and that has turned out to give us a big advantage over the competition as we’re unique in that we’re the only people with a VTOL UAV with a diesel engine.

“There’s a small fixed wing aircraft called the Diamond which is actually powered by a small Mercedes Benz car engine but apart from that, we’re the only ones with a diesel and we have created a purpose built engine for the task – using engines built for automotive use often leads to problems because they’re not designed to run flat-out all the time.

“The engine is designed and built by Delta Hawk in the United States and we’re doing a lot of development work and we’ve taken the engine from 160 horsepower to 245 bhp and we’re aiming to get it to a reliable 300 bhp in the near future.”

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