Growth of U.S. UAS Sector Deemed Critical

Red Cat Holdings shared that United States Senator Mitt Romney (Republican, Utah) had toured the Salt Lake City headquarters of Red Cat subsidiary Teal Drones.

The August visit was undertaken for purpose of familiarizing Senator Romney with Teal’s operation and products. The factory Romney toured was purpose-built to meet the growing demand for U.S.-made drones. Romney met and spoke with Teal’s department heads and learned about the engineering, testing, manufacturing, supply chain, and compliance process germane to Teal’s products, including the Teal 2, a Blue UAS-certified military-grade drone.

Senator Romney is a co-sponsor of the American Security Drone Act of 2023, a key legislative initiative intended to strengthen U.S. drone manufacturing for national security purposes by prohibiting federal agencies from purchasing drones designed and built by Chinese government-linked companies.

Romney stated: “As the United States faces the growing threat of China, Utah-based companies like Teal Drones are playing key roles in our national security and industrial base. I enjoyed touring their facility in Salt Lake to better understand their manufacturing process and discuss ways to decrease America’s dependence on China for hardware critical to our security.”

Teal founder and CEO George Matus remarked: “We’re grateful for Sen. Romney’s interest in our company and his ongoing support for the U.S. drone industry. The American Security Drone Act, if passed, will lead to further investment in American UAS, accelerating our domestic industry’s ability to close the gap with China and build a strategic deterrence to future conflict.”

Red Cat vice-president of regulatory affairs Brendan Steward set forth: “We applaud Sen. Romney for his leadership on the American Security Drone Act and his unwavering commitment to American innovation and manufacturing. It’s critical that our legislators understand the urgent need for U.S. government investment in the American drone industry. In the last 15 years, China has made significant ongoing investments in its domestic drone industry, achieving a near global monopoly in drone manufacturing. With China’s imperial ambitions and alliance with Russia in clear focus, investment in American manufacturing is as urgent of a national security priority as we have seen in decades. A robust industrial manufacturing base propelled the United States to a position of global leadership after World War II and facilitated the greatest period of economic expansion in American history. This is not only possible again, but is necessary to maintain our global standing.”

Officially launched in April 2023, the Teal 2 is designed to lead the world UAS market in night operations capability.

The Teal 2 is the first sUAS (small Unmanned Aerial System) equipped with the Hadron 640R sensor, a superb bit of kit developed by Portland, Oregon-based Teledyne FLIR—a highly-regarded designer, manufacturer, and distributor of Forward-Looking Infra-Red (FLIR) technologies and products

Rugged, portable, and deployable in the harshest environments, the Teal 2’s multi-vehicle command and control capability enables 360-degree viewing of a single target or ISR observation of multiple targets. What’s more, by virtue of its Teledyne FLIR giblets, the Teal 2 offers operators the highest resolution thermal imaging available in a compact (Group 1) UAS.

In addition to Teledyne FLIR, Red Cat developed the Teal 2 in partnership with Athena AI, Reveal Technology, and Tomahawk Robotics.

Red Cat subsidiary Teal Drones is a member of the Blue UAS list of manufacturers—a small group of maverick technology concerns authorized to provision the U.S. military with esoteric implements of modern warfare. Teal Drones is one of only three drone-makers invited to participate in the Short Range Reconnaissance Tranche 2 (SRR T2)—a Pentagon initiative that set out to equip U.S. Army platoons with a sUAS capable of improving American warfighters’ situational awareness by carrying out Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) missions.

FMI: www.redcatholdings.com