Air Force Wants Counter-Drone Netting Over Six Tyndall F-35 Sunshades, and the SAM.gov Notice Carries a Response Date Typo

The U.S. Air Force is asking industry how it would hang drone-stopping nets around the sunshades that cover F-35As at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida. The request is a sources-sought notice that the 325th Contracting Squadron posted to SAM.gov on Nov. 6 under the number FA481927R9999. It asks contractors to design and install counter-unmanned aircraft system (C-UAS) netting on all four sides of six aircraft sunshade structures. The stated goal is to stop Group 1 drones, the smallest class of unmanned aircraft, before they reach the jets parked underneath.

The notice is market research only. It does not award a contract or commit funds. Even so, it is one of the more detailed public looks at how the Air Force wants passive drone defenses built at a fighter base. It also contains a clerical error that any company planning to respond needs to know about.

What the Air Force Is Asking For

According to the SAM.gov record, each of the six sunshades measures about 630 feet long, 65 feet deep and 30 feet high, and is divided into six bays. The War Zone reports that each shelter can hold up to six F-35As. It also notes that the six structures in the notice are only some of the sunshades at Tyndall.

The performance requirements are short and specific:

Coverage: netting on all four sides of each structure.
Threat: stop Group 1 unmanned aerial vehicles.
Strength: tensile strength of at least 200 pounds.
Mesh: openings no larger than 3 inches.
Materials: resistant to UV and moisture, rated to 400°F, with polyester or nylon preferred.
Wind: must meet Miami-Dade wind-load standards.
Access: the north and south sides must retract quickly.

The notice does not explain its numbers, but they point to practical problems. The 3-inch mesh limit appears aimed at keeping small quadcopters from slipping through, and the 200-pound tensile strength sets a minimum for how much load the netting must carry. The 400°F rating is a heat tolerance that fits a net hung on a flight line.

The Miami-Dade wind-load clause is likely to be a demanding one for bidders. The War Zone notes the requirement fits Tyndall's location on the Florida Panhandle, where hurricanes and other extreme weather are real concerns. A net covering the full side of a 630-foot structure will catch a lot of wind, so the attachment design matters; the notice says structural engineers may be needed to evaluate the load capacity of the existing metal sunshades.

The quick-retract requirement for the north- and south-facing sides is there, in the notice's words, to allow normal aircraft entry and exit.

The scale is large. A rough calculation that counts only the vertical side panels of a 630 x 65 x 30-foot box gives about 41,700 square feet of netting per structure, or roughly 250,000 square feet across all six. That estimate leaves out overlap, framing and any top cover, and the notice does not say whether the roofs need treatment.

The Air Force also asks respondents for proof-of-concept installations they have done at other Department of Defense sites. That is a sign the service wants vendors with field experience, not paper designs. The NAICS code is 238990, "All Other Specialty Trade Contractors," which puts the work in construction, not defense electronics. The notice says the squadron will use the responses to decide whether to set the contract aside for small businesses. The listed contact is Matthew S. Lahr, and the place of performance is Tyndall AFB, FL 32403.

Which Response Date Is Correct

The notice gives two deadlines. The submission instructions in the text say responses are due by 4 p.m. local time on Nov. 13, 2026. The structured response-date field in the SAM.gov record says Nov. 13, 2027.

Starbridge, a bid-tracking service, flagged the same mismatch on its own listing. It shows the solicitation as released Nov. 6, 2026, and closing Nov. 13, 2026, and notes that the structured field shows the 2027 date.

The 2027 date is almost certainly a typo. A one-week turnaround is normal for a sources-sought notice, and a 53-week window for basic capability statements would be very unusual. Still, many contractors find opportunities through automated feeds and saved searches that read the structured field. Those tools could treat this notice as open for another year. Companies that want to be counted in the Air Force's market research should go by the date in the text, which is this Friday.

A Template From Langley

Tyndall did not come up with this approach. In 2024, the 633d Contracting Squadron at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia posted a similar sources-sought notice, FA480025R0001, titled "LAFB UAS Netting Design and Prototype." A SweetSpot listing of that notice shows it asked for UAS netting on metal sunshades. The plan was a prototype on one sunshade that could lead to netting all 42 sunshades on Langley's East Ramp.

The Langley schedule was short. Capability statements were due Oct. 10, 2024, the design by Oct. 30 and the prototype by Nov. 30. That effort was a total small-business set-aside.

The timing was not a coincidence. The War Zone notes that the potential Langley netting plans followed still largely unexplained drone incursions over that base in December 2023.

Tyndall's notice looks like the next step in the same process. It covers fewer structures than Langley's East Ramp plan, but it is more prescriptive. It specifies mesh size, strength, heat and wind ratings, and it asks for proof of prior DoD installations. Langley's notice asked vendors to design and prototype. Tyndall's reads as if the Air Force now has a clearer idea of what it wants.

"Just Nets"

The Air Force's top uniformed officer has voiced support for the idea. The War Zone reports that Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach told Breaking Defense in July: "There is value in some light protection against small, unmanned threats... just nets... That actually works, [and is] really cheap." In the same interview, Wilsbach said he does not want to spend a lot of money on hardening shelters.

That is consistent with the Tyndall notice. Wilsbach called nets "really cheap" and questioned the economics of building hardened shelters. Nets on existing sunshades are a lower-cost partial measure against one specific threat.

The War Zone lists events that have made that threat harder to ignore. One is Operation Spiderweb, in which small drones launched close to their targets hit parked aircraft. Another is Iran's strike on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia in March 2026. Both show that aircraft parked in the open are exposed and that attacking them does not have to cost much.

Why It Matters

The Tyndall notice shows how the Air Force now frames base defense against small drones. Interceptors, jammers and detection systems are only part of it. The other part is ordinary physical protection that works whether or not anyone detects the drone in time. A passive net, unlike an interceptor or jammer, does not depend on detecting the drone in time.

The limits are just as clear. The War Zone notes that nets would do nothing against ballistic missiles or Iran's larger attack drones, which would go straight through any netting designed for Group 1 threats. The netting is one layer of defense against one threat class. Its value is that it would add a low-cost barrier against the cheapest attacks on parked aircraft.

For industry, the main lesson is that this is construction work done to military specifications. Because the work falls under a specialty-trade NAICS code, specialty trade contractors who can engineer anchors for hurricane winds look better placed than defense primes. Langley set the precedent and Tyndall has tightened the specifications. If the Air Force keeps following the approach Wilsbach described, more sources-sought notices like these are likely for other bases. Contractors responding to this one should use the Nov. 13, 2026 deadline.