British-Ukrainian Skycutter wins US strike drone trials with jam-resistant Shrike 10-F

The US government held a strike drone competition in February, and according to publicly available rankings, the contest was won by a small British company with production facilities in Atlanta and extensive operational experience on the Ukrainian front lines.

According to a report by Axios, Skycutter achieved a total score of 99.3 in the inaugural “Gauntlet” drone competition, which was held at Fort Benning, Georgia.

Neros, a startup based in California, secured second place with a score of 87.5.

Skycutter competed with its Shrike 10-F, a 10-inch first-person view (FPV) unmanned aerial vehicle. The Shrike 10-F is capable of being operated via fiber-optic cable, allowing it to bypass electronic jamming and counter-spoofing attacks.

The drone is the product of a partnership with SkyFall, a Ukrainian organization with which the company has maintained a close historical collaboration.

More than two dozen companies were invited to participate in Gauntlet I. The field of competitors included Auterion, Firestorm Labs, Performance Drone Works, and Teal Drones.

According to Axios, Skycutter’s success highlights several key developments:

• Flashy presentation does not always equate to substantive quality;
• Innovation exists outside the massive capital bubbles of Silicon Valley and Washington;
• The Russia-Ukraine war is actively shaping the battlefield technology of today and tomorrow.

“We were nervous going in, but we performed exceptionally well compared to our competitors,” Vincent Gardner, Skycutter’s operations director, told Axios. “We executed every mission profile they gave us perfectly.”

The tasks included in the competition featured long-distance operations and urban strike scenarios.

Regarding SkyFall, Gardner noted, “They are producing 123,000 units per month, one every 23 seconds.” He further explained that the drones were redesigned together to exclude Chinese-made parts or components, a core requirement of the Drone Dominance program.

“I think a lot of people came with quite over-engineered solutions,” Gardner said. “These drones are like mechanical hornets.”

The US Department of Defense’s “Drone Dominance” initiative is designed to equip American troops with large-scale, attritable drones within a few years.

Skycutter has currently signed contracts for more than 2,500 drones.

“We are really using this opportunity to distinguish ourselves, move quickly, and accelerate toward establishing our own dominance in the drone industrial base across Western markets,” Gardner said.

Mirroring the Biden-era Replicator initiative, this development serves as a tacit acknowledgment of how unprepared the US was for certain combat conditions observed abroad.

Approximately 75% of casualties in the Russia-Ukraine war are attributed to unmanned aerial vehicles.

The company plans to increase its production capacity within the US in the near term. “This has, as you can imagine, opened a lot of doors for us,” Gardner said.