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A new U.S. defense project is devoted to converting two General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc (GA-ASI) MQ-20 Avengers into air-to-air adversaries for training fighter pilots.
The jet-powered uncrewed aircraft systems won the $98 million contract for Project Red 5, a prototyping effort led by the Test Resource Management Center (TRMC), an arm of the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
The contract calls for GA-ASI to modify the Avengers with new sensors, data links and advanced mission systems, allowing them to role-play as air-to-air threats during training missions.
“We are thrilled to partner with TRMC to bring these capabilities that create operationally relevant Red Air surrogates and significantly improve Blue Force mission success in realistic air-to-air training scenarios,” says Jeff Hettick, GA-ASI’s vice president for Agile Mission Systems.
Project Red 5 revives a concept pursued by the Air Force until 2023. The Adversary Air-Unmanned Experiment program awarded a contract to Blue Force Technologies to develop the Fury UAS to perform as a surrogate enemy in air-to-air training missions.
But the Air Force canceled the program and diverted the funding to the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program.
Anduril later acquired Blue Force Technologies and offered the Fury for one of the two Increment 1 CCA development contracts. A derivative of GA-ASI’s XQ-67 UAS received the other CCA contract.
Now, the MQ-20 will audition to play the adversary air role, taking the place of the Air Force’s Fury program.
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