AirLand LLC, a joint venture between Textron Inc. and AirLand Enterprises LLC, has unveiled its Scorpion prototype, an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and strike aircraft platform.
The demonstration aircraft is now in test phase, with first flight scheduled to occur before the end of this year. Textron Chairman and CEO Scott Donnelly said at a press briefing on Monday, “We began development of the Scorpion in January 2012 with the objective to design, build, and fly the world’s most affordable tactical jet aircraft capable of performing lower-threat battlefield and homeland security missions.” Donnelly continued, “We relied on commercial best practices to develop a tactical jet platform with flexibility and capabilities found only in far more costly aircraft.”
The Scorpion is designed to accommodate the increasingly stringent budget constraints of the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. partner nations. The Scorpion’s design is matched to the Air National Guard’s missions such as irregular warfare, border patrol, maritime surveillance, emergency relief, counter-narcotics, and air defense operations. While Scorpion’s lower acquisition price is an advantage, an equally important benefit is the lower cost of operation over the aircraft’s full life cycle, according to the company’s spokesman. Combining ease of maintenance and globally-available commercial components, the Scorpion is meant to significantly lower the customer’s total cost of ownership.
F. Whitten Peters, former U.S. Secretary of the Air Force, an investor in and advisor to AirLand Enterprises LLC, commented, “With its industry-leading capabilities in commercial aircraft and defense systems design and manufacturing, Textron was a natural partner to bring the vision of an affordable tactical military jet to fruition.” He added, “In an impressively short time, the joint venture has designed and built a capable and mission-ready aircraft with no up-front government funding. We believe Scorpion will fill a critical price and performance gap in the tactical military aircraft market.”