US Navy Buys 68 More ISR Drones From Boeing Firm

Naval Air Systems Command (Navair) has ordered an additional 68 Blackjack and ScanEagle uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) from Insitu at a cost of $102 million.

Details of the new acquisitions from the Boeing subsidiary were announced via a recent U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) press statement earlier this month. As per the Pentagon statement, Navair is buying 21 RQ-21A Blackjack UAVs and 47 ScanEagles, plus associated payloads and support equipment.

The Blackjack drones are already used by both the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps; they can be deployed for a variety of missions including intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and electronic warfare (EW).

They are 2.5m long, have a wingspan of just under 5m, and can stay in the air for up to 16 hours, travelling at speeds of up to 60 knots. The drones can be launched from land or sea. The Insitu website states 31 RQ-21As are already in use by American forces, and a further four with international allies.

Cumulatively ScanEagle UAVs have already been in the air for more than 1.3 million flight hours, as per the Insitu website. The ISR drone can stay in the air for 18 hours at a time; it has an operational ceiling of 19,500ft and can deliver communications at ranges of up to 55 nautical miles.

The Pentagon said the purchase was “in support of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance for the Navy, Foreign Military Sales customers, and other international business partnership capacity efforts.”

The systems are set to be delivered by June 2026.

• You can read the full details of the contact on the U.S. DoD website and more about the UAVs on the Insitu website