Beyond Blackjack: DARPA planning new X-plane to give ship COs local ISR assets
The program manager told Breaking Defense all six companies remaining in the program are narrowing in on a similar design incorporating folding wings.
FARA: Five-Way Fight For Army’s Future Scout
AVX/L3, Bell, Boeing, Karem, and Sikorsky have submitted their designs for the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft. None of them is a conventional helicopter.
How technology, strategy and industry are shaping the next fleet
Discover how unmanned systems and emerging technologies are shaping the future of U.S. naval power in Breaking Defense’s new eBook.
Tilting Wings, Tilting Tailprop, But Not A Tiltrotor: Karem’s FARA Design
How does a company best known for designing tiltrotors, which are notoriously wide, meet an Army requirement for a scout aircraft that can fly down narrow streets?
What Will Boeing Offer For Army’s FARA Scout? Don’t Ask.
Whatever their aircraft is like, Boeing's PR strategy is definitely stealthy. There's a strategic reason for that.
FARA: Army Awards 5 Design Contracts; Winner Enters Production in 2028
Awards for Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft designs went to Bell, Boeing, Karem, Sikorsky, and a partnership of AVX and L-3.
Congress Divided On $75M For Army Scout Aircraft: Fly The Deadly Skies
WASHINGTON: Senate appropriators want to give the Army $75.4 million to kick-start its new scout aircraft, but key authorizers told us they are skeptical. (House appropriators are so far silent). The crucial questions: Can a manned, low-altitude, lightweight aircraft survive against the Russian threat? And can the Army afford the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) […]
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Answering the demand signal to move faster, field sooner, iterate continuously
As threats rapidly evolve, digital engineering, manufacturing capacity and robust supply chains are critical to meeting challenges.
MUX By 2026: Marines Want Armed Drone ASAP To Escort V-22
When V-22 Ospreys full of Marines take to the skies 10 years from now, they could be escorted by armed high-speed drones called MUX. That’s become the Marine Corps plan because drones let you do things differently. Doing without a pilot inside makes it possible to build unorthodox aircraft that would work poorly carrying tender humans. You […]
Tern Tailsitter Drone: Pilot Not Included
One of the oddest military drones aborning reinvents a stillborn technology from 1951. That’s because the unmanned aircraft revolution is resurrecting configurations that were tried more than a half century ago but proved impractical with a human pilot inside. The case in point: Northrop Grumman’s new Tern, a drone designed to do everything armed MQ-1 Predators […]
Davis: Marines Want VTOL Drone Before FVL
AUVSI: There’s money in the 2018 budget to develop a new sea-based, armed vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) drone the size of the Air Force’s MQ-9 Reaper, Marine Corps deputy commandant for aviation, Lt. Gen. Jon “Dog” Davis, says. Davis expects to see them in the inventory well before the Army-led Future Vertical Lift program produces new […]
You-Ain’t-Gonna-Believe-This Design Wins DARPA X-Plane Deal
DARPA, whose mission is to develop cutting edge and even crazy edge technologies to make sure the U.S. military stays ahead of its competitors, did just that in choosing the winner of its Vertical Takeoff and Landing Experiment Aircraft project, aka VTOL X-Plane. Aurora Flight Sciences was awarded an $89.4 million contract Thursday to build its exotic LightningStrike entry […]
Modernizing defense enterprise IT without disrupting the mission
Government can’t stop to update systems, so modernization has to happen without interruptions.
It’s A Bird! It’s A Plane! No, It’s Aircraft That Fly Like A Bird!
In the 1934 film “It Happened One Night,” fictional slime ball “King” Westley shows off by floating to a landing on the lawn of his fiancée’s daddy’s estate in a newfangled autogiro – an airplane with a rotor to enable short take offs and landings. Today, two Defense Department programs are striving to meet the […]