Australia shortlists Insitu and Textron for Tactical UAV requirement

The Insitu RQ-21A (left) and the Textron Aerosonde V4 (right). Photo c/o ADBR.

Two out of four companies competing for the Australian Army's LAND 129 Phase 3 Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems (TUAS) has been shortlisted to continue in the next stages of the project.

The two companies were identified as Insitu Pacific, which offered their RQ-21A Integrator and ScanEagle 3 UAVs, and Textron Australia with their Aerosonde V4 UAV.

Both companies beat out Leidos Australia which offered the Aeronautics Defense Orbiter 4 from Israel, and Raytheon Australia-Schiebel Pacific team with the S-100 Camcopter.

The LAND 129 Phase 3 project aims to replace the Australian Army's fleet of AAI RQ-7B Shadow 200 Version 1 currently operated by the 20th Surveillance and Target Acquisition Regiment.

The RQ-7B Shadow 200 Version 1 was found to be obsolete for further use in the next few years, and even the US Army has started replacing them with a newer variant, the RQ-7 Shadow 200 Version 2, which the Australian Army found as not in line with their own requirements.

[1] ADBR 
[2] Asia Pacific Defense Journal