Silent Arrow wins Air Force contract to develop 200-mile contested logistics drone

Silent Arrow has been selected by The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) for a $1.8M Direct to Phase II SBIR contract focused on building and flight testing the Silent Arrow CLS-200 (“Contested Logistics System, 200 Nautical Miles”) attritable special missions Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS).

The CLS-200 relies on the foundational engineering of the commercially successful Silent Arrow GD-2000, the world's first heavy payload, autonomous and attritable cargo delivery aircraft to enter full-rate production.

The GD-2000 has been deployed in the United States and in multiple overseas countries from a variety of aircraft including the C-130H, MC-130J, C-27J and Airbus A400M.  Mass production is based in the UK and led by Silent Arrow manufacturing partner The MEL Group under AS9100, with Airbus DS Airborne Solutions GmbH also partnered with Silent Arrow to distribute and support the GD-2000 heavy cargo delivery UAS platform throughout European market segments.

Whereas the GD-2000 is an unpowered glider, the new CLS-200 can travel six times as far by utilizing an innovative propulsion unit and propeller system that are inexpensive enough to allow the entire cargo drone to be single-use.  In addition to being air droppable, it will also be capable of taking off from the ground including from unimproved surfaces, naval vessels and other launch points.

“We'd like to thank the U.S. Air Force, AFRL and our Air Force Customer and End-User organizations for expanding Silent Arrow's warfighter offerings by awarding this competitive Direct to Phase II,” says Chip Yates, Silent Arrow's founder and CEO.  “The flight testing at our Pendleton, Oregon facility will be exciting as we longline airdrop 5 units from our UH-1H rotorcraft and then deliver a 6th unit to the Air Force for their hands-on evaluation.”