Standing amid a grove of pepper plants in Thousand Oaks last week, Christopher Thompson revved up his plane's tiny 6-inch propeller and then gently tossed it into the sky, much as weekend hobbyists fly their airborne toys.
But this mini-aircraft called the Raven, weighing little over 4 pounds and painted in Army gray, is no ordinary model.
It is actually a tiny U.S. military spy plane that can hover quietly 500 feet in the air and transmit video images to operators several miles away. These Simi Valley-made planes are providing vital information to ground combat soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan who want to know what's happening over the ridge and around the bend.
"It served us well," said Thompson, a private first class with the Army National Guard, as he demonstrated how his unit used the Raven in Afghanistan. There the aircraft helped his platoon avoid enemy ambushes and pinpoint the location of insurgent mortar fires. "It's an essential part of what we do in the Army now," he said.
These unmanned planes have quickly become a mainstay of U.S. military operations and are helping propel the growth of a once-tiny company that until recently was better known for its gangly, pedal-powered planes.
The aircraft is not only popular at the Pentagon, but its manufacturer has caught the attention of investors.
AeroVironment Inc., the small company with headquarters in Monrovia, has recently become the darling of Wall Street, where investors have been driving up the stock price. The stock has risen more than 50% since March.
The shares have retreated in recent days along with the overall market. On Tuesday, the stock price fell 6.8%, but rose as much as 7% in after-hours trading because of a better-than-expected earnings report.
The Raven, with a wingspan of 4 1/2 feet, and the smaller 1-pound Wasp are fitted with cameras that transmit live-video images of what's ahead.
The planes, which are collapsible and fit in a rucksack or a backpack, are controlled on the ground by a soldier using a hand-held pad resembling a video-game controller and a laptop with video images of the plane's flight path. If a soldier loses control or sight of the plane, its onboard computer automatically takes over and flies itself back to where it was launched.
In June, the Pentagon awarded AeroVironment a contract potentially worth $200 million for the company's new larger Puma AE unmanned surveillance plane. That's on top of the $358-million contract the company won in 2005 to build more than 1,900 Raven aircraft.
