Drones are big business right now if you’re a defense contractor, building drones, designing new drones, and trying to compete with drones coming out of Ukraine and Russia. However, the bigger concern is countering drones, and the Army has a new toy to test out.
Introducing the Freedom Eagle-1 (FE-1), yup, it doesn’t get more patriotic than that, by AeroVironment. It’s designed to be a low-cost, tailor-made surface-to-air missile for countering drone incursions.
While other options like Sidewinder missiles or the nation’s prized Patriot missile batteries can do the trick, for now, they are expensive. Sidewinders can cost $500,000 apiece, and Patriot systems can be in the millions to use and maintain.
The FE-1 costs somewhere between $150,000 and $200,000. This is similar in range to a shoulder-mounted Stinger system, although anti-drone specific versions of those have ballooned in price.
The concept is a basic one, design a cheep missile that can lock on and destroy a drone mid-air using an explosive charge on impact.
The FE-1 is specially designed to tackle the latest versions of Russia’s Shahed drones, which have become the best long-range single-use drones used in combat at the moment. Russia can produce a large number of them and continue to implement block upgrades that increase the drone’s range, speed, and operating altitude.
AeroVironment and the U.S. Army are hoping that the FE-1 can put a stop to the Shahed’s dominance.
While no word from the DoD or AeroVironment states that the Freedom Eagle will be sent to Ukraine, it wouldn’t be a shock to see units sent over to test out their capabilities in real combat.
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