First flight of Aerosonde Unmanned Aircraft System on US Navy's destroyer.

According to a press release published by Textron Systems Corporation on April 4, 2022, the Textron Inc. company, announced the successful first flight and maritime integration of the Aerosonde® Small Unmanned Aircraft System (SUAS) on a U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class Guided Missile Destroyer (DDG).
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Aerosonde Unmanned Aircraft System on US Navy's Arleigh Burke-class destroyer (Picture source: U.S. Navy)

The integration follows a September 2021 award by the U.S. Navy of a multi-year Aerosonde task order for maritime intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) services aboard two DDGs.

The success of this first flight emphasizes the system’s ability to offer a mature, reliable aircraft to support the types of ship-based missions being performed now, all within a small aviation footprint in a higher sea state environment.

Built with maritime missions in mind, the Aerosonde platform offers the multi-mission capability and, with over 550,000 flight hours, proven reliability and performance.

Integrated into the ship’s combat systems, the Aerosonde is equipped to deliver day/night full-motion video, wide-area surveillance, communications relay, signals intelligence, and more. The expeditionary platform is powered by a heavy fuel engine and is capable of point takeoff and landing, minimizing the impact on the ship’s operations.

The system is powered by a purpose-built Lycoming EL-005 heavy-fuel engine for benchmark-setting reliability. The Aerosonde has a 140 km (75 nm) range.

The Arleigh Burke-class of guided missile destroyers (DDGs) were designed as multi-mission destroyers, able to fulfill the strategic land strike role with Tomahawk missiles; anti-aircraft warfare (AAW) role with powerful Aegis radar and surface-to-air missiles; anti-submarine warfare (ASW) with towed sonar array, anti-submarine rockets, and ASW helicopter; and anti-surface warfare (ASuW) with Harpoon missile launcher.