X-61 Gremlin Military Drone Catching Claw

New footage has emerged of a groundbreaking military development that could open a new age of drone warfare for the United States and its allies. In the short video produced and published by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA, a massive C-130 aircraft can be seen flying over a desert landscape. The cargo plane then deploys a recovery latch device similar to those used by tanker planes to refuel other aircraft. Soon after, we see a military class drone approaching the end of the latch while it performs various adjustments and maneuvers to align itself properly to the latch device. The stakes couldn’t have been higher; never has a military drone been recovered mid-flight, and an earlier test the same day resulted in an unfortunate crash. The implications of a successful mid-air recovery system for military drones are tremendous, and if everything works according to plan, the US military could soon deploy swarms of military drones simultaneously, exponentially increasing