Firestorm is building Class 2 and Class 3 drones, bringing faster production times and lower costs and a system with a more adaptive range of flight operations.
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Firestorm is building Class 2 and Class 3 drones, bringing faster production times and lower costs and a system with a more adaptive range of flight operations. Their modular approach allows for swappable propulsion systems, payloads, alternative power systems, sensors and wings, making it possible for a single drone to carry out a number of different activities, while still transportable by a single human. Their approach to rapid, low cost production relies on commodity hardware that can be 3D printed at the site of operation within a cargo container. Instead of the 5-6 week production time, it can take 9 hours to print the parts, 18 hours to install and assemble and 24 hours to be flight ready. This comes at 1/5 the cost of traditional drone production methods. This is very important because the US DoD supply chain is incredibly weak and lacks the flexibility and speed to resupply our depleted munition reserves, arm our allies or restock in active conflicts. It is largely broken by the legacy defense industrial complex, made up of a small cartel of contractors after the industry consolidation in the 1990s. This complex is a bloating, administrative mess that cannot fully service the US defense requirements, but drains US tax payer dollars. For example, it costs 10x more in the US than Russian to make comparable artillery shells. There is no modular system or additive manufacturing for drones, which are the two most requested features. The result is Raytheon takes 150 man hours and $350K to produce the Coyote, which has one single type of flight mission. Firestorm can make a comparable drone in 9 hours, for $50K. And this drone is modular, allowing it to complete a range of flight missions, rather than the single purpose Coyote.
