Every UASFeed story on U.S. Air Force — across defense, counter-UAS, industry, commercial, policy, and tech, newest first.
A verified cost ladder across drone classes, from $500 FPV strike drones to a $618 million MQ-4C Triton, showing why unit cost, all-up-round cost, and program cost are not the same number.
Read the story →From Air Force officers flying MQ-9 Reapers to Army 15Ws at Fort Huachuca to squad-level FPV familiarization, a look at how the U.S. military actually trains drone operators, and how South Korea and Ukraine compare.
DARPA has grown its Lift Challenge to 124 teams from 20+ countries, setting up a $6.5 million heavy vertical-lift flyoff at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, August 2-9, with public finals August 6-9.
GuideTech, a Palladyne AI subsidiary, secured a $2.3 million contract to supply its BRAIN flight computer and FLEX software to an undisclosed prime building a kinetic counter-UAS interceptor that has already completed flight testing.
Echodyne is opening a $40M plant near Seattle in July to build at least 30,000 counter-UAS radars a year — a roughly five-fold jump — because orders are outrunning production across the counter-drone market.
The U.S. Air Force selected General Atomics and Anduril Industries on June 17 to produce the first operational Collaborative Combat Aircraft — the FQ-42A and FQ-44A — targeting more than 150 combat-capable drones by decade's end under a unit cost ceiling near one-third of an F-35A.
Russian electronic warfare can blank GPS within 5 kilometers of deployment. Shield AI’s president says 99% of military autonomous systems fail under jamming. The solution — running perception, navigation, and targeting entirely on the drone — is now combat-proven.
AEVEX Aerospace's Phoenix Ghost — developed under a classified U.S. Air Force program before Russia's 2022 invasion — grew from a 121-drone Ukraine announcement into a $576 million, 5,000-unit program encompassing four named variants across two UAS groups. Here's what's confirmed, and what remains classified.
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems is the private, family-controlled company that built the Predator, Reaper, and Gray Eagle — and is now in production on the FQ-42A, one of the first uncrewed aircraft to carry a fighter designation in U.S. military history.
Lithium batteries cap most drones at 30–45 minutes. Hydrogen fuel cells and gas-electric hybrids are dismantling that ceiling — with certified hardware entering commercial and military catalogs, though storage infrastructure remains the stubborn bottleneck.
Two directed-energy technologies are competing to replace the $2-million missile shot against $500 drones — high-power microwave systems that blanket swarms in a single burst, and high-energy lasers that burn targets one at a time. The physics of each determines where they win and where they fail.
Six decades of air-defense suppression trace how SEAD — the threat that forces radars off the air — and DEAD — the physical kill — evolved from Wild Weasel jets and anti-radiation missiles to autonomous loitering munitions that can outwait a radar gone silent.
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