Thinking outside the box... Is inside the box at aurora flight sciences

Aurora Flight Sciences was acquired by the Boeing Company on November 8, 2017. The company was started in May 1989 by John Langford who graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technologuy (MIT) with a PhD in Aeronautics and Public Policy. Aurora has already become a leader in the design and building of autonomous, unmanned fixed wing aircraft, and currently has under development the D8, a concept aircraft planned as a commercial airliner. Aurora is also heavily involved in vertical flight, with three major projects now underway, the eVTOL air taxi, the unmanned XV-24A LightningStrike and AACUS (the autonomous aerial cargo utility system). Aurora is developing the current prototype for the Uber Elevate competition. The LightningStrike design takes advantage of computer-based computational aerodynamics, a lot of composites, and an unconventional propulsion approach that was even more radical when it was initially proposed. The LightningStrike is planned as an unmanned aircraft, with an avionics package developed by Aurora. It will fly using waypoint navigation, typical of current UAS. Aurora is using commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components from companies like L3 and Rockwell Collins. A third vertical lift program Aurora has underway is the Autonomous Aerial Cargo Utility System (AACUS) developed under the US Office of Naval Research (ONR).