NASA’s ‘Greased Lightning’ drone ideal for endurance surveillance, can fly like helicopter or plane

NASA has used rapid prototyping to develop the “Greased Lightning” (GL-10) drone, which has 10 engines and can fly like a plane or a helicopter.

Long-term plans for the electric aircraft, which has a 10-foot wingspan, involve a wide variety of jobs for the U.S. government. Its inventors also foresee the possibility of a manned version being put to use.

“It could be used for small package delivery or vertical take off and landing, long endurance surveillance for agriculture, mapping and other applications,” said Bill Fredericks, NASA aerospace engineer, Fox News reported Friday. “A scaled up version — much larger than what we are testing now — would make also a great one- to four-person size personal air vehicle.”

The new drone was developed in Hampton, Virginia, by NASA’s Langley Research Center.