U.S. trio advances in Pentagon’s race to build 300,000 military drones

Three American defense companies have been selected to compete in the Phase II qualifier of the Pentagon’s Drone Dominance Program in June 2026 at Camp Grayling, Michigan, putting them in contention for a share of a program that aims to deliver more than 300,000 drones to U.S. forces by 2027 under a total budget of up to $1.1 billion. Mountain Horse Solutions, a Global Ordnance company, along with partners AG3 Labs and Draganfly, received invitations to compete in two mission areas with two distinct drone platforms, covering both long-range strike operations and close-quarters urban combat.

The Drone Dominance Program is the most ambitious drone procurement effort the U.S. military has publicly launched, and the scale of its ambition reflects how completely the war in Ukraine has transformed American thinking about unmanned systems at the tactical level. The program’s goal of delivering over 300,000 drones by 2027 dwarfs anything the U.S. military has previously attempted in the drone procurement space, and the $1.1 billion ceiling across four phases is structured to move at commercial speed rather than traditional defense acquisition timelines, with multiple vendors competing in live qualification events rather than a single contractor winning a long-term exclusive contract.

The Department of War’s intent, as described by officials including undersecretary Emil Michael at SOF Week 2026, is to deliberately break the small circle of approved vendors that previously controlled drone sales to the military and open the market to any company capable of producing capable, affordable, American-made systems at scale.

The consortium’s two platforms address the mission areas that define how tactical drones are actually used on a modern battlefield. The Flex FPV drone competes in both Mission Area A and Mission Area B, covering the full spectrum from long-range strike to close urban combat. The SPADE drone joins it in Mission Area B, focused specifically on the close-quarters fight inside buildings, trenches, and tunnels at ranges under two kilometers. Mission Area A requires systems capable of identifying and engaging targets at distances between five and twenty kilometers beyond visual line of sight, a category that encompasses the kind of deep strike against logistics, command nodes, and vehicle concentrations that FPV drones adapted for longer range have demonstrated repeatedly in Ukraine, where operators have struck targets at considerable distance from launch positions using autonomous navigation to cover ground that direct operator control could not manage.

Both mission areas impose the same demanding environmental requirements: all-weather operation, low-light capability, and resilience in contested electromagnetic environments where radio frequency jamming and GPS spoofing are assumed rather than exceptional. Those requirements reflect hard-won operational lessons from Ukraine, where both sides have invested heavily in electronic warfare systems that disrupt drone control links and navigation, and where the drones that have proven most effective are those with autonomous navigation modes that allow them to continue toward objectives even when the operator’s control signal is severed. A drone that stops flying the moment it encounters jamming is not a military asset in a contested environment; it is an expensive piece of debris.

Bill Allen, president of Mountain Horse Solutions, framed the selection as validation of the consortium’s production-focused approach: “Being selected to compete in Phase II of the Drone Dominance Program is a testament to our approach to rapid, scalable drone production. We’re proud to demonstrate capabilities that support the warfighter in the complex operational environments that define modern conflict.”

Nick Smock, head of strategy at AG3 Labs, described the SPADE and Flex platforms in terms of the program’s core procurement logic: “Being selected as a Phase II qualifier for Drone Dominance is validation of what we’ve been building toward, attritable, American-made systems purpose-built for exactly this kind of high-stakes operational environment. We’re proud to be competing alongside Mountain Horse Solutions, a partner who shares our commitment to getting the right capabilities into warfighters’ hands fast.”

The word attritable in Smock’s statement carries specific meaning in drone procurement. An attritable system is one designed to be used and lost without catastrophic cost consequences, built cheaply enough that commanders can employ it aggressively rather than holding it back to preserve an expensive asset. The contrast is with the MQ-9 Reaper or Global Hawk, which cost tens of millions of dollars each and require careful management and risk assessment before every mission. A drone that costs a few hundred or a few thousand dollars can be sent into situations where loss is expected, which fundamentally changes how commanders can use it.

Draganfly’s Cameron Chell, the company’s CEO and president, acknowledged the next steps ahead: “Draganfly is honored to have been down-selected by the Drone Dominance Program in partnership with Mountain Horse Solutions and Global Ordnance. We look forward to the next round of work and progressing our operationally proven model forward within the program.”

The Phase II qualifier at Camp Grayling will evaluate production readiness, military utility, and supply chain resilience alongside raw performance, because a drone that flies well in a demonstration but cannot be manufactured in volume or sustained through a supply chain that holds up under wartime pressure does not meet the program’s actual requirements. Approximately five vendors from each mission area are expected to advance to the next phase and receive prototype delivery orders, meaning the June qualifier will substantially narrow the field before larger procurement decisions are made.