Textron’s Shadow RQ-7B V2 Block III (Courtesy of Textron)
Columbus, Ohio — The US Army has selected five companies to proceed with its Future Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System (FTUAS) Increment 2 (Inc 2) competition, a process designed to determine which aircraft will replace the legacy RQ-7B Shadow.
AeroVironment, Griffon Aerospace, Northrop Grumman, Sierra Nevada Corporation, and Textron Systems, each received FTUAS Inc 2 contracts late last month that range from $1 million to $25 million, the service announced on Tuesday.
“The FTUAS Inc 2 will improve the brigade combat team’s ability to conduct reconnaissance and surveillance operations that collect, develop, and report actionable intelligence information about the enemy in degraded Global Positioning System environments,” the service wrote.
Program officials have broken the competition into five “development phases” that will include a base and four option periods that span between 2023 and 2025. Each one will include various delivery benchmarks and testing periods.
“FTUAS will revolutionize the way our soldiers fight and win wars by providing enhanced reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition with unparalleled speed and agility” said Col Danielle Medaglia, the UAS project manager.
Requirements for increment two “include runway independence, point take-off and landing, and a rapidly deployable Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) capability,” per the Army. “When fielded, the FTUAS INC 2 will provide a distinct tactical advantage over current systems due to increased maneuverability through VTOL, improved command and control supported by the On-the-Move (OTM) capability, a reduced transportation and logistics footprint, as well as significantly improved survivability due to reduced noise signature.”
Last August, the Army awarded AeroVironment’s Jump 20 an $8 million contract for the first increment of FTUAS. Under that agreement, the service agreed to buy one Jump 20 system, which includes six air vehicles, ground data terminals and ground control stations. The Jump 20 was also recently announced as heading to Ukraine.
Enterprise-wide training: the Army’s $3.5B program for multi-service combat readiness
The competition for Warfighter Training and Readiness Solutions will bring together training networks, combat training centers and live ranges across the DoD enterprise.
Australia tops up Ukraine military aid with $100M
Australia has already supplied Ukraine with 120 Bushmaster vehicles, six 155mm howitzers, 56 M113 armored vehicles, 14 special operations vehicles and its signature cardboard drones.
