HUNT VALLEY, Md., 20 May 2008.AAI Corp., an operating unit of Textron Systems, a Textron Inc. company, announced that its Shadow UAS have achieved 300,000 cumulative flight hours in service with the U.S. Army and Marine Corps. Ninety-one percent of the flight hours were amassed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.
"It is gratifying to see how mature our Shadow UAS technology has become in the hands of America's soldiers and Marines," says AAI's vice president of Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Steve Reid. "The frequency with which we're achieving these milestones is a testament to the robustness of the system, as well as the excellent partnership we have with our customers to ensure our technology is meeting the mark."
In fact, this milestone was reached only 10 months after the systems reached 200,000 total flight hours, and 22 months after the first 100,000 flight hours were accumulated.
This milestone comes on the heels of receipt by AAI of orders for two additional systems from the U.S. Army, five additional systems from the Marine Corps, and a training system for the National Guard -- all contracted through the U.S. Army Unmanned Aircraft Systems Program Executive Office for Aviation.
To date, a total of 96 Shadow systems have been ordered for use by the Army, Marines, and National Guard and 65 have been delivered to these customers.
