WASHINGTON — Defense firm Anduril and aviation manufacturer Archer today unveiled a new Group 5 drone dubbed Thunder, designed to be a “loyal wingman” flying aside helicopters like the Apache and future Cheyenne fleet, senior Anduril officials said.
Anduril President Chris Brose said that Thunder has been in development for about three years and is a fully autonomous, armed reconnaissance tiltrotor aircraft developed from lessons learned from the company’s fixed wing YFQ-44A, or Fury aircraft, that is currently being produced for the Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft effort.
“What we’ve also been focused on over the past few years as part of this effort is really thinking through how those similar principles and related technologies have an opportunity to really transform maneuver warfare,” Brose told reporters ahead of today’s unveiling which was timed to coincide with the Farnborough Airshow. By maneuver warfare, he said he’s referring to the “tactical air-ground littoral fight.”
“Many of the things that you know we’ve designed and engineered into Thunder are really based on the lessons that the United States and our European allies are learning in Ukraine,” he continued.
Thunder is the military variant of the new Anduril-Archer VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) rotorcraft, which also grew out of Archer’s experience developing “electric air taxis,” according to a release from the two companies. The VTOL will also have a commercial version, and the firms said Archer plans to announce partners in that space in coming days.
