Platform Aerospace’s Vanilla UAV Endurance Gets Attention Of US Air Force

In the fall of 2021, Platform Aerospace launched its modified VA001 Vanilla UAV above Edwards Air Force Base in California, USA on 24 September 2021 and recovered it on 02 October 2021.

This flight for 8 days 50 minutes, and 47 seconds across 12,2000 miles of continuous flight, set a world record for Group 3 Ultra-Long Endurance UAS (ULE UAS), and also piqued the interest of the United States Air Force.

Lt Col Adam Brooks, Emerging Technologies Combined Test Force Director is on record as stating that “while the world record is exciting in and of itself, it is more important that we realize what this endurance ability means for our Joint Services who need persistent ISR capabilities immediately.” Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) is the capability for gathering data on a persistent or event driven basis, to then process, exploit and support decision makers.

Kurt Parsons, CEO or Platform Aerospace stated that their “goal is to get a low-cost ultra-long endurance ISR asset to the warfighter that can carry real mission payloads” and that the record-setting unit “costs less than (DoD) pays for some ordnance”. Furthermore, he is hopeful of the opportunity to provide a system with “drastically reduced manning and logistics cost.”

Platform Aerospace is but one of many hopefuls seeking to get the attention of the United States Military, and with all the ongoing developments, the author foresees interesting times ahead for the uncrewed aircraft industry.

FMI: https://usaf.mil, https://platformaerospace.com