The Nomad VTOL UAS family, shown in a rendering, is envisioned for various sea and land-based missions. (Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin company)
Lockheed Martin's Sikorsky subsidiary is developing a family of rotor-blown wing vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) unmanned aircraft systems (UASs), called Nomad, meant to operate in austere, urban, and shipborne environments.
The aircraft's design is to be scalable and is starting with what the Pentagon classifies as Group 3 sized platform (similar to the US Army's Shadow UAS), Sikorsky Advanced Programs business development director Ramsey Bentley told reporters ahead of the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) 2025 annual symposium.
The company has built multiple demonstrators for a Group 3 Nomad, and versions have participated in the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA's) Early VTOL Aircraft Demonstration (EVADE) project, Bentley said.
In March Sikorsky said it flight tested its "10.3-ft wingspan prototype Nomad 50 aircraft" and is now building its Nomad 100 aircraft, which the company called "a Group 3, 18-ft wingspan variant with first flight expected in the coming months".
A Group 4 sized platform (similar to the Gray Eagle UAS) is past a preliminary design stage and could be demonstrated within a year or two, Sikorsky Innovations Director Igor Cherepinsky said during the same briefing.
Group 3 Nomad would have about a 500 lb payload and be employed for brigade reconnaissance and light attack missions, while Group 4 would be a division or corps-level asset, company officials said.
The aircraft designs are focused on reconnaissance missions, but both could do kinetic and non-kinetic effects missions "and also have a cargo capability for contested logistics", Bentley said. The company envisions them as multirole and multiservice platforms, he said.