128 The Aircraft of British Aerospace and BAE SYSTEMS 1977 - 2017
HERTI over Afghanistan, but this failed to
materialise. An armed version of the
HERTI was developed and flown at
Woomera called the Fury which could
carry a lightweight missile. One of the
HERTIs was registered as G-HERT by BAE
in November 2007 but was deregistered
at the end of 2014 as withdrawn from use.Mantis
Under a contract awarded by the UK
MOD in July 2008, BAE Systems was
appointed as the industry lead and prime
contractor of a jointly funded project to
develop a world-class Advanced Concept
Technology Demonstrator (ACTD) UAV
called Mantis. Whereas BAE’s earlier UAVs
had all been small, the Mantis is of larger
proportions and is 65ft long, fitted with
two Rolls-Royce RB250B-17 engines. First
flight was on 21st October 2009 at
Woomera, again demonstrating BAE’s
rapid engineering processes. The twin
turboprop-powered aircraft made a
number of flights from Woomera,
demonstrating its ISTAR (information,
surveillance, target acquisition, and
reconnaissance) potential. It is a concept
demonstrator with a viable mission
system and is intended to be fully
autonomous. A model of the Mantis was
exhibited with a representative combat
load of four Paveway precision-guided
bombs and two Brimstone-like air-to-
surface missiles. Mantis returned to BAE
Warton in June 2010 but has not flown
again. BAE Mantis, ZK210 first flew at Woomera in Australia on 21st October 2009. It made a number of flights from there demonstrating its ISTAR (information,
surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance) potential. It returned to Warton in 2010 and has not flown since then. (BAE Systems)BAE Jetstream G-BWWW which is a
surrogate UAV testbed, together with the
BAE Mantis, ZK210, a twin turboprop
UAV seen at Warton. G-BWWW now has
an all black livery. (BAE SYSTEMS)