REPRESENTATIVE
Designed to present the jet-powered threat to sensors, crews and interceptors.
LINE 01 / Aconite
THE THREAT.MADE REPEATABLE.
A recoverable jet-powered threat surrogate for realistic air-defense training and test.
FIRST PRIORITY
01 / Mission
TRAIN AGAINST WHAT IS COMING.
Air defenders and interceptor developers need to train and test against the threat they will actually face: jet-powered one-way attack drones, faster and harder to stop than the propeller-driven drones before them. Realistic targets of that class are scarce.
Aconite is designed to represent that class, fly repeatably and come home. Recovery and safe flight termination are design requirements from the first flight, so every sortie returns data instead of debris.
02 / Design
RECOVERABLE
Recovery and safe flight termination designed in from the first flight.
REPEATABLE
Built for many sorties, fast turnaround and consistent test conditions.
FOUNDATIONAL
The first Ferrus aircraft planned to fly, proving the shared airframe, avionics and software.
03 / Program facts
- ROLE
- Aerial threat surrogate for training and test
- PROPULSION
- Jet
- RECOVERY
- Recoverable, with safe flight termination
- INTENDED USERS
- Air-defense test ranges, training units and interceptor developers
- STATUS
- First priority
04 / Platform
Aconite is built on the Ferrus common spine: shared avionics, software, interfaces and production.
- AIRFRAMES AND TOOLING: Common structures, and the tooling to make them at rate.
- AVIONICS: One family of flight and mission electronics across every product.
- FLIGHT AND MISSION SOFTWARE: One software base, built to improve with every flight of every product.
- COMMON CANISTER INTERFACE: A standard mechanical and electrical interface for launch and integration.
- UNIFIED TEST-DATA LOOP: Every test feeds one dataset that every product line learns from.
- PRODUCTION AND SUPPORT: One line, one quality system, one support model.
05 / Status
FIRST PRIORITY
- CONCEPT
- DESIGN
- BUILD
- FLIGHT TEST
- QUALIFICATION
- PRODUCTION