Leonardo’s Falco Xplorer MALE UAV will not receive a military certification until 2022, more than two full years later than originally planned, because of flight test complications caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The test programme ‘slowed down’ in 2020 mainly because of travel restrictions preventing Leonardo staff from reaching the test range at Trapani Air Base in Sicily, according to Fabrizio Boggiani, SVP airborne sensors and mission systems at Leonardo.
‘Support from both internal resources and even the supply chain have been affected,’ he confirmed.
Despite the travel restrictions still to be lifted, Boggiani told Shephard that the company is
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As countries increasingly move away from Chinese drone manufacturing and focus on domestic production and collaboration, Europe and the US are well-placed to step in – although cost remains a crucial consideration.
Although the Replicator initiative has made several accomplishments, there are still multiple gaps to plug across the US Department of Defense (DoD) and its services.
Cummings Aerospace presented its turbojet-powered Hellhound loitering munition at SOF Week 2025, offering a man-portable solution aligned with the US Army’s LASSO requirements.
PDW has revealed its Attritable Multirotor First Person View drone at SOF Week 2025, offering special operations forces a low-cost, rapidly deployable platform for strike and ISR missions, inspired by battlefield lessons from Ukraine.
Teledyne FLIR is highlighting the emerging requirements for 'recoverable and re-usable' loitering munitions across the contemporary operating environment during this week’s SOF Week conference in Tampa, Florida.
High-performance maritime industry player Kraken Technology Group, based in the UK, has used the SOF Week conference in Tampa, Florida this week to debut its K3 Scout uncrewed surface vessel (USV) to the North American market.
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