Ukrainian drone makers are getting another shot at a Pentagon contract, this time for bomber drones. Seventeen companies, including Ukrainian firms and Western partners fielding Ukrainian designs, will test bomber drones at Camp Grayling in Michigan in October, the next stage of the Pentagon's Drone Dominance program, Defender Media reported.
The Phase 2.5 Bomber Qualifier is the latest round of the Pentagon's drive to buy combat-tested drones at scale, and Ukrainian makers are again in the field, some through US-registered partners, because Pentagon rules bar direct sales from foreign firms.
This time, the target is bombers, the drones that drop munitions on what is below them.
Seventeen makers head to Michigan
The contest runs at Camp Grayling, a Michigan training range, and organizers call it the hardest and fastest-paced stage of the program yet. Each company must bring at least six fully built systems.
The testing splits into two parts: a Bomber Qualifier, which the makers conduct themselves, and a Bomber Gauntlet run by US soldiers. Organizers have not published details of a third mission. Winners of the wider program earn Pentagon supply contracts.
Ukrainian bombers make the list
The invited firms include UFORCE USA Services, Grim Tech, Gurzuf Defence, UA Defense Tech, Skycutter, and UDD Tech Corp. Which models they will bring is not yet clear.
UFORCE is known for its Nemesis bombers. Grim Tech showed a light bomber, the Grim-18, at the MSPO defense expo in Poland this month, and Gurzuf builds heavy bombers, including the Ayudag-6, which recently set a Ukrainian payload record for multirotor drones at 130 kilograms.
A second try after a US sweep
In the program's last phase, the Pentagon picked five winners in each of two categories, and all were American, though a Ukrainian firm had reached the second round and, by industry accounts, Ukrainian designs were incorporated into some Western entries. For Ukraine's makers, the bomber round is another chance to turn battlefield-proven hardware into a US contract.
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