Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works division is building a...

Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works division is building a drone that will be able to transport cars, storage containers, and eventually even pods full of soldiers for DARPA. The drone, which will be called the Transformer TX, is currently in a $20.3-million “Phase 3” process, which means Lockheed is finalizing its design before building a working prototype. If DARPA finds that the prototype meets its needs, it can then opt to pay the defense contractor to produce the drones for flight sometime in 2015.

Lockheed, which showed off a few design renderings of the project at the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) trade show last week, has been working on bringing the Transformer TX to life since 2010. Originally, DARPA was looking for a military-ready flying car. (…) But over the last few years, the company says it found that an unmanned vehicle that can carry cars and other similarly sized objects — such as storage containers full of people or medial and military supplies — made more sense than a flying car.

Read more at The Verge, and much more at Code One Magazine.