WASHINGTON — Lockheed Martin subsidiary Sikorsky announced today the launch of its Nomad drone fleet, a family of vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) twin-proprotor UAS.
The aircraft, which will range in size from medium-sized Group 3 UAS to Black Hawk-sized Group 5, are designed to operate in “austere” environments for reconnaissance, “light kinetic,” and cargo missions, all while operating on Sikorsky’s MATRIX autonomous technology using an open-systems architecture, company executives told reporters ahead of today’s announcement. Right now the company said it is focusing on developing its Group 3 UAS, but is drawing up plans for a Group 4 model.
“The resulting Nomad family of drones will be adaptable, go-anywhere, runway independent aircraft capable of land and sea-based missions across defense, national security, forestry and civilian organizations,” Rich Benton, Sikorsky vice president and general manager, said in a company announcement.
The Nomad family of systems, which will run on hybrid-electric power are being funded through internal company investments. The Nomad fleet is also part of DARPA’s EVADE program. Though the company is not on contract with the Army to develop the Nomad fleet, executives said they foresee the Group 3 solution acting in the same capacity of the Army’s RQ-7 Shadow fleet — a Group 3 UAS designed for the brigade level that was completely shelved last year. As Breaking Defense previously reported, Army leaders are looking for a replacement to the Shadow by 2026.
“If you’re thinking about an Army application, you would see the Group 3 variant doing what was the Shadow mission for the Army, focused on brigade reconnaissance capabilities,” Erskine “Ramsey” Bentley, director of strategy and business development for Sikorsky Advanced Programs, told reporters.
He added that he foresees the Group 4 Nomad solution serving in the same caliber as the Army’s Gray Eagle drone. The Army halted purchases of the Gray Eagle as part of the Army’s Transformation Initiative and plans to keep the newer ones in inventory and upgrade them, while phasing out the older variants around the fiscal 2028 timeframe.
The company said the Nomad fleet could be useful to not only the Army, but also other services and the civilian side of the government.
“We see these aircraft as being multi-role, but also multi-service, and we also see civilian applications, or commercial applications for these aircraft also being vertical takeoff and landing. They would be ideal for shipboard operations with the Navy or the Marine Corps,” Bentley said. “We could use these for spotting wildfires, for wildfire suppression operations, or they could be used for humanitarian assistance operations.”
Before the Nomad family was officially announced, Sikorsky was developing a small rotor blown wing VTOL UAS deemed the “Nomad 50,” but has since turned its attention to Group 3 systems. Along with the announcement of the Nomad family, the company unveiled the Nomad 100, a Group 3 UAS that will undergo flight testing later this year, an executive said. He added that Sikorsky is in the beginning stages of developing a Group 4 Nomad.
“Group 4 is really on our drawing boards [in the] preliminary design review. We are discussing it with a couple of customers. There is no contract,” Igor Cherepinsky, the director of Sikorsky Innovations, told reporters last week. “We’re going to go build one [and] demonstrate it anyway, sometime within a year.”
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