Textron’s Shadow UAS Reaches 1M Flight Hours; Henry Finneral Comments

Textron has recorded more than 1 million flight hours for the Shadow tactical unmanned aircraft system since the company launched the aerial vehicle in 1999.

The company said Tuesday Shadow became the only UAS of its size to accomplish the feat and that more than 85 percent of the drone’s flights occurred during combat operations.

Shadow TUAS supports the U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Special Operations Command and armed forces of Italy, Sweden and Australia, according to Textron.

Henry Finneral, vice president of TUAS at Textron Systems‘ unmanned systems business, said the company’s new Shadow V2 platform seeks to offer a broad set of operational features and address drone performance and reliability requirements from customers.

The V2 system is designed to perform intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations and equipped with  communications relay, manned-unmanned teaming and target laser designation technologies.