Army FTUAS Program: Cancellation, Replacement, and Funding Fight

The Army cancelled the Future Tactical Uncrewed Aircraft System (FTUAS) program in May 2025 under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Army Transformation Initiative, ending a multi-year competition to replace the retired RQ-7 Shadow drone at the brigade level. Army leaders said the program as structured could not deliver a system fast enough for the threat environment they see ahead, and the service is now pursuing a faster commercial off-the-shelf buy under a “brigade UAS directed requirement,” with initial fielding targeted for fiscal year 2026.¹²

Why the Army Cancelled FTUAS

On April 30, 2025, Hegseth issued a memorandum titled “Army Transformation and Acquisition Reform,” directing the service to “build a leaner, more lethal force” by divesting outdated programs and accelerating modernization inside existing budgets. The memo cited lessons from the Ukraine conflict, argued that “the old way of doing war will no longer suffice,” and ordered the Army to reduce manned attack helicopter formations, replace them with drone swarms, and field unmanned systems in every division by the end of 2026.³⁴

FTUAS was halted within weeks, immediately after the competitive flight demonstration phase had concluded. Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James Mingus framed the decision as a capability mismatch rather than a change of heart on the requirement: “It’s not that we don’t want a Future Tactical UAS. It’s just the one that was being developed didn’t meet our needs.”¹

Col. Nick Ryan, director of the Army Capability Manager for Unmanned Aircraft Systems, later added that leadership wanted to avoid the traditional acquisition timeline, which would have meant waiting another two to three years before anything reached units.² FTUAS was not the only casualty. The same initiative cancelled future procurement of the MQ-1C Gray Eagle and put other programs under review, including the CH-47F Block II Chinook and the M10 Booker ground vehicle.⁵

What FTUAS Was Meant to Deliver

FTUAS was scoped as a Group 3 unmanned system (under 1,320 pounds) intended as a generational step beyond the Shadow. The core requirements were vertical takeoff and landing so the aircraft could operate from austere positions without a runway, on-the-move command and control so operators could fly it while the unit displaced, soldier-led field maintenance to eliminate the Shadow’s dependence on contractor support, and a modular open systems architecture that would let the Army swap in new sensors, payloads, and software without redesigning the airframe.⁶

Beyond those fundamentals, the Army wanted a platform that could carry electro-optical and infrared sensors, extend communications networks, perform electronic warfare, and potentially deliver lethal payloads. Compared to the Shadow, FTUAS was to have a smaller landing area, shorter setup time, better transportability, and a significantly quieter acoustic signature.⁷

How Far the Competition Got Before It Ended

The Army opened rapid prototyping in February 2023 with five vendors, narrowed the field to four that spring, and by September 2023 had down-selected to two finalists: Griffon Aerospace, with its Valiant tiltrotor drone, and Textron Systems, with its Aerosonde Mk 4.8 HQ.⁸⁶⁹ Textron delivered a production-representative aircraft to the Army in December 2024.¹⁰ Five months later the program was dead.

What Is Replacing FTUAS

The requirement did not go away with the program. Even before cancellation, the Program Executive Office for Aviation had been developing a parallel “brigade UAS directed requirement” as a potential gap-filler, and in December 2024 issued a sources sought notice on SAM.gov looking for “available, production ready, and cost-effective tactical UAS” with vertical takeoff and landing capability.¹¹

With FTUAS gone, that directed requirement became the main path forward. The Army reopened the competition to include Griffon and Textron alongside other commercial vendors, and shifted decisively toward buying existing Group 3 drones off the shelf rather than developing a custom platform through a traditional program of record.¹² A “tranche one” capability is planned for fiscal year 2026, with rapid iteration through subsequent tranches after that.²

Col. Danielle Medaglia, the project manager for Army UAS, said the service intends to transfer technologies developed during the Griffon and Textron flight tests rather than discard that work.¹ The desired capabilities have not changed: a VTOL platform with a reduced acoustic signature, organic transportability, reconnaissance and surveillance as the primary mission, and modular payload bays for communications relay, electronic warfare, and lethal effects.²

Funding and the Fight With Congress

The Army’s fiscal year 2025 budget had allocated roughly $143 million for the “Future UAS Family” line item, covering procurement of 47 FTUAS units. For fiscal year 2026, that funding was moved out of its original budget line into a category labeled “Agile Portfolio Management,” reflecting the pivot away from the traditional program of record.¹³ Col. Ryan said the money previously earmarked for FTUAS remains available and is being redirected to the brigade UAS directed requirement.²

Congress pushed back. The House of Representatives’ fiscal year 2026 defense appropriations bill rebuked the Army’s decision and included $185.5 million to continue the FTUAS development effort, effectively attempting to force the program back to life.² The tension between the Army’s push to move faster through commercial procurement and Congress’s preference for the established program of record is unresolved.

The Gap at the Brigade Level

The RQ-7B Shadow was officially retired in early 2024 after roughly two decades as the Army’s brigade-level workhorse, and no organic replacement has been fielded since. “We’ve already been without a Shadow for a couple years now,” Col. Ryan said in August 2025. “So, brigades don’t have a capability at this time.”¹² Fiscal year 2026 is the earliest the Army now expects to begin delivering a replacement, and that assumes funding is settled and vendors can deliver production-ready systems on that schedule.

A Separate Effort at the Division Level

The brigade UAS work is distinct from the Army’s parallel effort to replace the MQ-1C Gray Eagle at the division level. The Army halted future Gray Eagle purchases under the same transformation initiative, though the fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act bars the service from retiring the Gray Eagle until it has a platform of equal or greater effectiveness in hand.¹⁴¹²¹⁵ If you’re tracking the brigade tactical drone question, that Group 4/5 effort is a different aircraft on a different timeline.

1
Defense News. Army Halts Tactical UAS Competition Without Clear Plan Forward
2
Aviation Today. After FTUAS Cut, Army Looks to Field Brigade UAS in FY 26 to Replace Shadow Drones
3
Department of Defense. Army Transformation and Acquisition Reform
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Department of Defense. Hegseth Tasks Army to Transform to Leaner, More Lethal Force
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Shephard Media. FTUAS and MQ-1 Gray Eagle Fall Victim of the Army Transformation Initiative
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U.S. Army. The Army’s Future Tactical Uncrewed Aircraft System Program Achieves Two Major Milestones
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U.S. Congress. Witness Statement, House Armed Services Subcommittee
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C4ISRNet. Griffon, Textron Advance in Army’s Future Tactical UAS Competition
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Aviation Today. Army Completes Initial Flight Demos, MOSA Evaluation With FTUAS Prototypes
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U.S. Army. US Army Takes Delivery of Textron Systems Mk 4.8 HQ Aerosonde System for FTUAS Program
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DVIDS. US Army Releases Tactical UAS Sources Sought
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Breaking Defense. Amid Shakeup, Army Plans to Replace Gray Eagle and Shadow Drones
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U.S. Army Financial Management. Aircraft Procurement, Army – FY 2026 Budget
14
Defense Scoop. Army S/VTOL Drone Group 4 UAS
15
The Defense Post. US Army Gray Eagle and Shadow Replacement