- Reaction score
- 64
- Points
- 530
TERN will be a combat drone capable of flying strike missions from most any Navy ship.
http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/12/18/northrops-new-combat-drone-could-outclass-boeing-f.aspx
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new drone -- and this one could turn every one of America's 272 warships into a virtual aircraft carrier.
That's the upshot of what seemed, at first glance, to be a really very modest contract awarded by the Pentagon to defense contractor Northrop Grumman (NYSE:NOC). On a slow day for contract awards in general (it was, after all, Christmas Eve), the Department of Defense announced it had granted Northrop Grumman $93.1 million in funding to "design, develop, and demonstrate enabling technologies and system attributes for a medium-altitude long-endurance unmanned air vehicle and shipboard-capable launch and recovery system allowing operations from smaller ships."
That's a whole lot of Pentagon-speak there. But what it boils down to is this: Two months ago, rival drone-builder AeroVironment told investors it will not proceed to Phase 3 of the DARPA TERN project to land large unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, or more commonly, just "drones") on small warships. At the time, we speculated that this meant Northrop Grumman would win the contract -- and we were right.
http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/12/18/northrops-new-combat-drone-could-outclass-boeing-f.aspx
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new drone -- and this one could turn every one of America's 272 warships into a virtual aircraft carrier.
That's the upshot of what seemed, at first glance, to be a really very modest contract awarded by the Pentagon to defense contractor Northrop Grumman (NYSE:NOC). On a slow day for contract awards in general (it was, after all, Christmas Eve), the Department of Defense announced it had granted Northrop Grumman $93.1 million in funding to "design, develop, and demonstrate enabling technologies and system attributes for a medium-altitude long-endurance unmanned air vehicle and shipboard-capable launch and recovery system allowing operations from smaller ships."
That's a whole lot of Pentagon-speak there. But what it boils down to is this: Two months ago, rival drone-builder AeroVironment told investors it will not proceed to Phase 3 of the DARPA TERN project to land large unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, or more commonly, just "drones") on small warships. At the time, we speculated that this meant Northrop Grumman would win the contract -- and we were right.
