Anduril Industries / Blue Force Technology CCA, FQ-44 Fury

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Red Medium is the program name for the stealthy air adversary UCAV being developed for the USAF aggressor force:

Red-Air-Blue-Force-page-018-scaled-e1628894078168-900x600.jpg

https://www.airforcemag.com/stealth-adversary-air-drone-contract-expected-in-september/
 
from BFT site
 

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Red-Air-Blue-Force-page-018-scaled-e1628894078168-900x600 (1).jpg
blue force technologies has presented a new stealth aerial targeting aircraft.
Software-Defined, Unmanned Jets Pitched For USAF Training Role
For two years, Blue Force Technologies has been developing a UAS called REDMedium to perform as much as 60% of the adversary air training mission for the Air Force.
Click to expand...
Stealth Adversary Drone Contract Expected in September
With a 5,000-pound max takeoff weight, the aircraft—known for now as “Red Medium”—will have modular payloads and open-systems architecture, allowing a wide array of threats to be simulated, the company’s founder and president Scott Bledsoe said. It will use a Williams FJ44-4 engine, a 4,000-pound thrust class “military trainer derivative of their biggest business jet engine,” he said. The 20-foot-long, 17-foot-span, carbon-fiber jet will be capable of attaining Mach .95 and turning at up to 9Gs, with a 4G sustained turn. It will also have persistence to fly two adversary engagements without landing to refuel.
Click to expand...

Aviation Week calls this trainer-like small UAV the "RED Medium".
However, the actual registered trademark seems to be "Fury".
Trademarks filed by Blue Force Technologies Inc. (Total 8 trademark
There are a few other interesting trademarks...
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This UAV will use the SBIR system, and by Phase 2, it will be
It seems to have been tested up to "Iron bird".
Application of Unmanned Aerial Systems to Generate Low-Cost 4th- and 5th- Generation Threat Replication
Application of Commercial Technologies to Generate Quasi-5th Gen Unmanned ADAIR
The podcast by the officer talked about the cruise missile simulations they were doing on the Cessna Citation.
The next generation of combat UAVs with Joseph Murray and Andrew Van Timmeren

This aircraft appears to be an attempt to use existing components and achieve low cost.
But it has a life of 6000 hours for use in ADAIR. Boeing referred to their own ATS as Semi Attritable, but could it be close to that?
I'm having fun trying to gather more information about this interesting plane!
 
CREATING A BALANCED ADVERSARY AIR ENTERPRISE TO BOLSTER USAF COMBAT READINESS
This is a report that was registered with DTIC and later removed, but it contained a UAV plan called ADAIR-UX for this Fury.

897.PNG fury.PNG

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BFT
This shape has also been confirmed on the Blue Force Technologies website.
However, the image currently used in Air Force Magazine and other articles is not a rudder-vator, but a general shape of a T-38-like tail, which is presumed to be an early proposal.
 
AFRL program advances unmanned air system used for training U.S. fighter pilots
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio (AFRL) – The Air Force Research Laboratory Aerospace Systems Directorate has awarded a Small Business Innovation Research contract to Blue Force Technologies to develop an unmanned air vehicle that supports adversary air (ADAIR) training missions. The Bandit program contract was awarded as the result of a Strategic Financing (STRATFI) proposal selected by AFWERX with a $9 million initial value and options to complete the design and build of up to four air vehicles.
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The 12-month effort will mature the vehicle design to critical design level, perform engine ground testing and validate the design of the engine installation under the technical guidance of AFRL subject matter experts. Options under this contract, if exercised, will complete the design and engineering tasks, produce up to four air vehicles and complete initial flight testing.
Click to expand...
It appears that new funds have been raised.
AFRL seems to have named it the Bandit Program.
 
Blue Force Technologies to invest $3 million in Wake Forest, create 125 jobs
Blue Force Technologies, Inc., an industry leader in the design and manufacture of airframes and components for small aircraft up through spacecraft, plans to invest a minimum of $3 million in the facility formerly occupied by 3Phoenix, Inc., located at 204 Capcom Ave.
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-The new facility will provide the space and infrastructure to support the production of up to five aircraft per month.
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Does making this investment mean that we can expect more contracts from the Air Force...?
 

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No. It's a startup. Investing in capital assets has been a privileged way for many other to divest investor's money legally.
You can see the same scheme in other aerospace Startups that start investing in large facilities even before they have a mature design to produce.
 
This is likely discussed elsewhere, but the number of start-up companies tells me that the American services are realizing that the expense of platforms from the OEM are getting to the point that they cannot afford a sufficient number of platforms for the cost. So they are looking to smaller companies with lower overhead. Perhaps this is also the case in the UK with the exciting new modular trainer. There is also the strategic consideration that there are going to be more competitors in the market (China, Turkey, Korea, etc.) that can also underbid the current market cost.
 
It looks a bit like a Vought Regulus II prototype - the ones that had undercarriages...
 
just in case, this is not Fury
look like covers for some (weapons?) dispensers(?)
 

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It's another design for sure. Looks like something like a liquid release. Quite mysterious to me.
 
Maneuvering spoilers?
 
That's what I thought first. But look at the tubes under the hexagonal panels. It seems that's what needs to be manoeuvred clear of the fuselage.

And then, why would you release effectors or flares from this position, right in the path of the wing and tail? I also understand that the blue highlighted volume is an integral tank.
 

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And recently purchased an energetics propulsion company. I’m liking how Anduril is moving forward.
 
A small, low powered UAV probably already has a significantly smaller signature compared to a high performance fighter. If the goal is operating as a red force stand in, it is probably unnecessary to suppress the IR.
 
it seems cheaper to impose limits on existing IR sensors to mimic degradation against stealth fighter than to build the hardware into red force drones.
 
I had no idea Palmer Luckey was the founder of this company, back when I got my VR oculus devkit he personally answered a bunch of support questions I had, now he's building jets?!
 
I just don't think it is a big deal given the dramatically smaller output of the engine compared to a modern manned fighter. It might even need some kind of signal augmentation.
 
With Anduril's new Barracuda cruise-missile it mentions that in addition to air-launch there's also a ground-launch option, I wonder if the launch-booster is something off the shelf or a bespoke design made specifically for the Barracuda series?
 

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Fury was a REDFOR drone acquired from a different company. It was never designed for internal AAM carriage, for example. I seriously doubt this will hold up to General Atomic's offering.
 
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