US Army cancels Future Tactical UAS programme

The Griffon Aerospace Valiant, until recently a competitor for the now cancelled FTUAS programme. (Griffon Aerospace)

The US Army has cancelled the Future Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System (FTUAS) programme, intended to replace the Textron Systems RQ-7 Shadow to provide brigade-level intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), the army told Janes on 13 May. The cancellation is part of a recently announced overhaul of army acquisition, which has included cancelling the General Dynamics Land Systems M10 Booker tank and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems MQ-1 Gray Eagle acquisition programmes, among others.

“We are changing the way we move forward with the integration of uncrewed aircraft systems based on [the] evolving battlefield,” the army told Janes. “We can't get locked into long-term programmes of record as technology is rapidly evolving, and we need to bring in technologies that solve today's problems.”

“We will first field every division with 1,000 drones, [and] after that we will experiment with those systems and see if we scale that larger or not,” the army continued. “Based off that use case of success is how we will delineate and request additional funding for additional units.”

Two FTUAS candidates – the Textron Systems Aerosonde Mk 4.8 HQ and Griffon Aerospace Valiant – wrapped up testing at the army's Redstone Test Center, outside Huntsville, Alabama, in September 2024. The army had intended to select a contest winner in the fourth quarter of fiscal year (FY) 2025, and as recently as 30 April announced delivery of the first production Valiant for testing.

Textron Systems referred questions to the army; Griffon Aerospace had not responded to Janes questions at the time of publication.

For more information, please see US Army FTUAS competitors complete prototype testing .