Boeing subsidiary Insitu has signed a $102.3-million deal to deliver additional RQ-21 Blackjack and MQ-27 ScanEagle unmanned aerial systems for the US Navy.
The contract specifies 21 of the RQ-21A small tactical drones and 47 of the MQ-27 surveillance and reconnaissance aerial vehicles to be distributed for naval force operations, US foreign military sales customers, and other “business partnership capacity efforts.”
The package includes system payloads, support equipment, turrets, spares, tools, and training.
Associated work to complete deliveries will be facilitated at the Washington-based company’s center in Bingen and in various locations outside the US.
Insitu is scheduled to finalize the contract by June 2026.
The project is a modification to a previously awarded contract in September 2022 for 13 Blackjacks and 25 ScanEagles.
This primary framework ordered another set of drones in April 2024 incorporating six Blackjacks and 20 ScanEagles.
Meanwhile, an initial contract signed in 2019, costing $390 million, procured a separate package of up to 63 Blackjacks and up to 93 ScanEagles.
The RQ-21 Blackjack
Insitu’s Blackjack is an 8-foot (2-meter) system with a wingspan of 16 feet (5 meters).
It has an empty weight of 135 pounds (61 kilograms) and is powered by two-bladed propellers and an 8-horsepower EFI piston engine.
The aircraft flies at 100 miles (161 kilometers) per hour. It has an altitude of 19,500 feet (5,944 meters), a range of 50 nautical miles (58 miles/93 kilometers), and an endurance of 16 hours.
The MQ-27 ScanEagle
Meanwhile, the ScanEagle measures 6 feet (2 meters) long, has a wingspan of 10 feet (3 feet), and has a weight of 40 pounds (18 kilograms).
It is equipped with a 1.5-horsepower 3W International 2-stroke piston engine for speeds up to 80 knots (92 miles/148 kilometers per hour), a service ceiling of 19,500 feet (5,944 meters), a range of more than 60 miles (97 kilometers), and a straight flight time of over 20 hours.
