RapidFlight, designer and additive producer of attritable, mission-customized, mass-producible drones, efficiently demonstrated its skill to quickly design, manufacture, and deploy the SPX, an unmanned aerial car (UAV), to Autonomy Prime specs in lower than 90 days. This was a primary deliverable beneath RapidFlight’s $10 million contract with the U.S. Air Drive (USAF) AFWERX Autonomy Prime program. The work beneath the contract culminated with profitable three-day coaching effort adopted by USAF-operated flights at Airlie Airfield in Warrenton, Virginia final month.
This venture milestone follows the June 2024 announcement that RapidFlight was tasked with delivering a quickly customizable, mission oriented, autonomous, fixed-wing UAV to handle pressing Division of Protection necessities. The contract positioned RapidFlight as a key associate within the U.S. Air Drive’s modernization efforts, leveraging the corporate’s proprietary AgileAviation course of to quickly design and manufacture mission-ready plane.
RapidFlight demonstrated its skill to swiftly deploy SPX, a clean-sheet plane, totally designed and manufactured to buyer specified mission necessities. RapidFlight then educated USAF personnel in simply three days to efficiently fly and function the plane. This milestone marks a brand new chapter for the SPX platform as a deployable asset for the U.S., different DoD clients, and their allies.
“The SPX demo is a testomony to the innovation and collaboration achieved at an extremely quick tempo,” stated Bennett Steward, AFWERX program supervisor, discussing this system’s progress. “This method to speedy and modular UAS design and manufacturing reveals promise in enhancing Air Drive operations, particularly as small UAS applied sciences turn into more and more related for navy methods and goals.”
“This milestone showcases RapidFlight’s skill to ship superior options shortly and to the exacting specs of ever-evolving nationwide protection wants,” stated Mike Uffelman, director of development at RapidFlight. “The SPX’s compliance with key legislative necessities—2020 NDAA Part 848 and 2023 NDAA Part 817—ensures the USAF is provided with protected, dependable, and high-performance UAS know-how. Extra importantly, the success of this collaboration demonstrates a brand new kind of workflow between contractor and the navy that may allow the US Armed Forces and its allies to extra readily reply to evolving unmanned battlefield dynamics.”
About AFWERX
Because the innovation arm of the DAF and a directorate inside the Air Drive Analysis Laboratory, AFWERX brings cutting-edge American ingenuity from small companies and start-ups to handle essentially the most urgent challenges of the DAF. AFWERX employs roughly 370 navy, civilian and contractor personnel at 5 hubs and websites executing an annual $1.4 billion price range. Since 2019, AFWERX has executed over 6,200 new contracts price greater than $4.7 billion to strengthen the U.S. protection industrial base and drive sooner know-how transition to operational functionality.
For extra info, go to: www.afwerx.com
About AFRL
The Air Drive Analysis Laboratory is the first scientific analysis and improvement heart for the Division of the Air Drive. AFRL performs an integral position in main the invention, improvement, and integration of inexpensive warfighting applied sciences for our air, house and our on-line world drive. With a workforce of greater than 12,500 throughout 9 know-how areas and 40 different operations throughout the globe, AFRL supplies a various portfolio of science and know-how starting from elementary to superior analysis and know-how improvement.
For extra info, go to www.afresearchlab.com
About RapidFlight
Based mostly in Manassas, Virginia, RapidFlight is a design, know-how, and additive manufacturing firm able to producing hundreds of personalized, low-cost, mission-ready, unmanned methods each centrally and on the tactical edge. The corporate’s proprietary digital design and manufacturing processes, referred to as AgileAviation, and skilled workforce of business professionals are setting new requirements in plane customization and mass manufacturing. RapidFlight addresses the dynamic challenges and stringent timelines crucial to nationwide safety.
For extra particulars, go to www.rapidflight.aero
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