The U.S. Army has made an unexpected decision in its nearly seven-year effort to find and procure a replacement for its retired Shadow unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs). The Army has decided not to proceed with the Future Tactical UAV (FTUAS) program, citing the fact that the systems under development do not fully meet its needs.
"It's not that we didn't want the tactical drone of the future. It just didn't meet our needs as it was being developed," Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James Mingus told reporters at the U.S. Army Aviation Association's (AAAA) annual conference.
The decision comes as part of a broad directive from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to make major changes to structure, formation and programs. The Army is taking a step toward canceling the FTUAS program at a time when two suppliers have just completed a competitive flight demonstration phase.
“It’s been incorrectly called ‘we killed FTUAS,’” General Mingus corrected. “We still need unmanned systems that can sense, that can see, that can network, that can kill, that can be kinetic, that can be [electronic warfare], short-range, medium-range, long-range, and so we will continue to invest in those types of systems.”
The decision is notable because it comes after the Army approved the features it was seeking in FTUAS a year ago and awarded contracts to two teams competing to produce the drone.
Efforts to Replace Shadow and the FTUAS Process
The Army has been trying to replace its Shadow UAV fleet for years, finally officially retiring it in early 2024. The Army then tried to figure out how to accelerate a fielding timeline for the FTUAS, but as Maj. Gen. Wally Rugen, then the Army aviation director at the Pentagon, noted at AAAA last year, there was insufficient funding to move faster.
The company invested in purchasing prototypes from Griffon Aerospace and Textron in fiscal 2025 and flying them for the next few years. “The good thing about FTUAS is that it’s plug-and-play,” Lt. Gen. Karl Gringrich, Army G-8, said in an interview a year ago. Those features include network extension, the potential for future lethal payloads, Electro-Optical Infrared (EO/IR) sensors and electronic warfare capabilities, Gringrich said.
Key requirements for FTUAS, along with rapid capability additions, included the Army wanting the aircraft to be runway independent, have on-the-move command and control and be capable of soldier-led field-level maintenance.
The Army began evaluating requirements for a replacement for its Textron-made Shadow drone in 2018. By 2019, the competitor pool had been narrowed down to a Martin UAV-Northrop Grumman team, Textron Systems, L3Harris Technologies, and an Arcturus UAV. Aerovironment acquired Arcturus in 2021, while Shield AI acquired Martin UAV later that year. The Army evaluated four drone proposals with operational units over a one-year period, culminating in a rodeo at Fort Benning, Georgia, in spring 2021. The Army awarded Aerovironment an $2022 million contract in August 20 to provide the Jump 8 UAS as an interim FTUAS capability for a single brigade. The Army had previously said it planned to field the FTUAS to the first equipped unit in 2026.
Technology Worth Saving and Possible New Paths
The Army’s UAV project manager has been asked to develop three action plans within 30 days to halt current FTUAS development, Army UAV project manager Col. Danielle Medaglia told AAAA. Those plans were due May 14.
“Right now, our plan is to continue development testing. We’re doing that with both suppliers, and from there, the Army will decide whether we want to just jump-start the Brigade [managed requirement] and also, hey, we need to transfer this technology,” Col. Medaglia said. “So how do we transfer this technology is really a big deal,” Medaglia said, noting that both suppliers have some new technology that they’re implementing in the Group 3 space and there’s no way the Army can afford to miss out on that.
Although Griffon did not participate in the first round of FTUAS demonstrations, with the Army set to reopen the competition to industry in 2023, the company He had been quietly working on his solution, keeping in mind the size and modularity the military really needed to accommodate the sensors and effects they wanted in such a platform. Jordan French, Griffon's tactical UAV program manager, said: In a recent interview with Defense News, “We actually see ourselves as a company that manufactures aircraft because in the UAV world, When performing a mission, the least you can think about is the actual aircraft," said. French, The aircraft is the most critical part, but operators must have full confidence in it, so they can focus on the mission and other critical components of the UAV, he said. French said that Griffon focuses on modular open system architecture and interfaces, In this way, when the customer has a need, whatever happens, He stated that it basically works as plug and play. The aircraft’s airframe technology also differs from the typical hybrid quadcopters or tail platforms often seen in Group 1.320 UAVs weighing less than 3 pounds, French said. “We took a completely clean-slate approach,” French said. The company focused on developing a system that uses a series hybrid, which combines an internal combustion engine with an electric motor. The aircraft also has four tiltrotors. French noted that one of the strengths of its tiltrotors is their ability to use thrust as a thrust vector. The series hybrid capability also allows the UAV to operate silently, a feature that differs from the distinct noise of the RQ-7b Shadow engine. “Just a few hundred meters away, the Valiant is virtually silent,” French said. Should the Army decide to purchase more systems on a larger scale, French noted that Griffon’s current rapid prototyping effort has completed all major milestones and is already in production for other customers and is ready to begin production for FTUAS. Griffon, he added, produces several hundred Group 3 aircraft for various customers each month. Textron, the other team participating in the recent flight demonstrations, declined to comment to Defense News.
Last October, the Army Chief of Staff signed a directive requirement to provide brigade-level UAV capabilities to six Contact Transformation Brigades by the end of calendar year 2025. The requirement was explained by Staff Sergeant 5 Micah Amman, the requirements development lead for FTUAS on the Army’s cross-functional team for the Future Vertical Lift Project. “We believe a brigade-level UAV is still needed to set the stage for the rest of the brigade,” Amman said. The Army cast a wide net to find options and asked industry to demonstrate how they fill the capability needs with technology. “We need a brigade-level capability, and I think that’s all I know, we don’t know yet. We’re still learning some of these things,” Amman said. He also noted that different formations and combatant commands may have different requirements, so a need at sea level may be different than a need in the mountains. Col. Nick Ryan, UAV capability manager within the Army’s Capability Development and Integration Directorate, said the only document that has remained unchanged for brigade-level UAVs is the order from the Chief of Army Staff. “We were not told to reexamine it, reassess it, revise it. This is what was approved and what is available now, and if we had the funding today, we would do it,” he said.
The Army’s decision is seen as a significant turning point in its UAV procurement strategy. The cancellation of the current program could be the beginning of a new process in which the Army can evaluate different technologies and approaches to meet future tactical UAV needs. It is thought that innovative solutions such as Griffon’s tiltrotor technology and series hybrid engine could attract the Army’s attention. It is eagerly awaited how the Army will proceed in the coming period and which technologies it will invest in.
