Textron Systems Corporation, a Textron Inc. company, announced today that it has been awarded a contract valued up to $18.3 million including all options by the U.S. Navy’s Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) to provide continued UAS operations support for the USS Hershel “Woody” Williams, designated ESB-4. The one-year base contract includes two 12-month options and two six-month options, for a total potential performance period of four years. The company was originally selected to support the ESB-4 in 2018.
“Our shipboard customers need UAS solutions that can deliver actionable data from multiple mission payloads without sacrificing valuable space on deck,” said Senior Vice President, Air Systems, Wayne Prender. “It’s equally important that we create a strong support ecosystem to keep availability and reliability rates high as operational tempo demands. In continuing to support our ESB-4 customer, we maintain our focus on setting the bar higher and higher in all these areas to keep our sailors informed and out of harm’s way.”
Under this contract, Textron Systems will continue to deploy its Aerosonde UAS to provide maritime operations aboard the ESB-4. The company’s personnel work alongside sailors to provide on-demand Aerosonde UAS operations to support a variety of maritime missions. Textron Systems’ Aerosonde UAS provides multi-payload performance in a single sortie, while requiring a minimal shipboard footprint and onboard logistics. Serving multiple U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) customers with contractor-owned, contractor-operated (COCO) UAS services alongside military users, the Aerosonde system has amassed more than 550,000 flight hours with superior availability in some of the world’s most austere and challenging environments. The company’s continuous improvement approach has allowed end users to implement new features, payloads and enhancements as needed to support the mission, while maintaining the highest levels of reliability.
