U.S. Drones Stumble in Alaska: A Wake-Up Call for Military Tech
DroneXL readers, brace yourselves for a tale of high-tech hopes and face-planting drones. According to Defense News, the U.S. military’s recent test of small, long-range attack drones at Fort Wainwright, Alaska, was less a triumph and more a lesson in humility.
Picture drones crashing into hills or bursting into flames—hardly the stuff of Pentagon dreams. Let’s dive into this misadventure, unpack why it went wrong, and explore what it means for the future of drone warfare and our beloved #DronesForGood mission.
Red Flag, Rough Landing: The Alaska Trials
While fighter jets roared through the Red Flag exercise at Eielson Air Force Base, a quieter but equally ambitious drone test unfolded 20 miles away at Fort Wainwright. The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), the Pentagon’s tech trailblazers, teamed up with four companies to trial drones built to strike targets despite enemy jamming. Sounds like the kind of mission your Mavic 3 could nail with a firmware update, right? Not quite. Defense News reports one drone missed its target and smashed into a hill, while another overshot and went up in flames.
The culprit? Electronic warfare (EW) jamming scrambled the drones’ navigation, turning them into expensive lawn darts. Trent Emeneker, a DIU official, told Defense News it’s too early to write off the effort, but admitted the results were “not what I would have hoped for.” In other words, it’s back to the lab, and maybe someone’s double-checking the GPS settings.
The Pentagon’s Drone Ambitions Meet Reality
The U.S. military’s been drooling over drones since Ukraine showed how cheap UAVs can turn tanks into scrap metal. For DroneXL readers who geek out over their DJI Air 3s obstacle avoidance, this is familiar territory—drones are game-changers, whether for epic footage or battlefield wins. The Alaska tests, part of the DIU’s Artemis project, aimed to prove small, long-range attack drones could outsmart jamming. Instead, they highlighted how far the U.S. lags behind in the drone race.
Artemis, spun up with $16 million from a Ukraine aid package, moved fast by Pentagon standards, selecting four companies in seven months. But here’s the rub: nobody’s buying. Defense News notes the Army, Navy, and Air Force are hesitant, each wanting drones tailored to their exact needs, like picky customers at a custom drone shop. Emeneker’s been pitching Artemis for a year, but the services keep dragging their feet. It’s the “valley of death”—where promising tech dies in a swamp of bureaucracy, slower than a DJI Neo on its last 15% of battery.
Blue UAS: A Good Idea Buried in Paperwork
Enter Blue UAS, the Pentagon’s attempt to make drone-buying as easy as grabbing a new controller. Launched in 2020, it’s a list of vetted, non-Chinese drones (sorry, DJI) that troops can purchase without jumping through hoops. Chris Bonzagni, a former DIU official, told Defense News the goal was to let a staff sergeant in the field buy a drone like it’s a new lens for their camera. But endless compliance checks—every software update needs a security audit—turned it into a bureaucratic quagmire.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s July 10 memo, delivered with the flair of a drone light show, demands drone units by September and less red tape. But the Alaska flop shows the U.S. is still stuck in first gear while adversaries like China, with their Y-20 drone-dropping plane, are flooring it. The Pentagon wants “drone dominance” by 2027, but right now, it’s more “drone disaster.”
Why This Matters to DroneXL Readers
For those of you tweaking your DJI Mavic 3 Pro in the garage, this story hits close to home. The tech that makes your drone dodge trees is miles ahead of what crashed in Alaska. These military drones wish they had your rig’s smarts. More importantly, this is a #DronesForGood reality check. Drones can save lives, gather intel, and keep troops safe—if the Pentagon can get out of its own way. Imagine U.S. drones swarming like a fleet of angry Phantoms, protecting allies without risking pilots. That’s the goal, but it’s drowning in paperwork.
The Pentagon’s obsession with banning Chinese components (again, sorry, DJI) slows things down. Companies like Neros, churning out 1,500 Archer drones a month, want to hit 10,000 by year’s end, per Defense News. But without buyers, it’s like building the ultimate drone and leaving it on the shelf. Your local drone club would’ve crowdfunded it by now.
The Path Forward: Can the U.S. Turn It Around?
Hegseth’s memo pushes for active-duty drone units and streamlined buying processes, with the Defense Contract Management Agency possibly stepping in to scale Blue UAS. The Alaska data is being studied to fix the jamming woes, but time’s ticking. With adversaries fielding advanced drones, the U.S. needs to move faster than a Mavic 4 in Sport Mode. The Artemis project isn’t dead—it’s a learning curve, but the Pentagon’s got to stop treating drones like they’re buying a new battleship.
For now, keep flying your DJI rigs and check DroneXL.co for updates. This Alaska flop is a reminder: your backyard drone is already a star, even if the Pentagon’s still figuring it out. Got thoughts on the U.S. drone struggles? Share them in the comments!
Photos courtesy of C. Albon / Defense News
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Rafael Suárez
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China isn’t blocking Ukraine’s drones, to my knowledge. They ARE studying the conflict intensely. With every Chinese company mandated by law to work with the PLA, and given all the spyware and backdoors in every other Chinese product bought by the US military and civilian comms industries, you can bet the parts made in China have backdoor controls, are sending feeds to Chinese servers, or self-destruct mechanisms. At least we have jamming systems to use ag against PLA drones. Ukraine and Russia have jammed drone problems also, hence fiber optic drones (fly by wire). Remember Serbia where our drone feeds were hacked and used against us? Better to wait than buy stuff the PLA can sabotage.
Moderator: Please delete the reoly. It’s early am. I misread my original final sentence. It is correct as is.
The “why this matters” section completely misses the takeaway from this exercise and showcases a lack of knowledge on EW. It’s not just gps spoofing/denying, and the tech that allows mavics to avoid trees (it’s Lidar BTW) doesn’t aid in actual navigation, just obstacle avoidance. EW also targets control and telemetry channels, video channels, etc to deny the operator the ability to handle the drone.
Comparing military drones to commercial ones is an apples to oranges affair. I am the CEO of a company that makes drones for military use and commercial and let me tell you, there is a HUGE difference in technical needs.
Brad Tannehill, great points. At the same time much of the innovation in Ukraine has come out of more or less common folk. I think that’s the key. Probably several everyday readers of this article have a good idea or germ of an idea for solving a problem faced on the battlefield.
The beauty of this drone revolution is that it finally cuts through the ossified major defense contractor bloc. The giants have their place but it’s not in agility.
Doesn’t surprise … the good ol’ boy hubris infects any innovation we try to field. Drone ramp up should have began years ago. We are still playing catch up. Smh.
Maybe those good ol’ boys were too busy flying stealth Death Dorito halfway around the world dropping 35,000 pound massive ordinace penetrators on top of some shithole making nuclear menace. Those 7 B2 Spirits, which are massive planes, flew from Missouri to Iran and nobody saw them coming. That hubris of theirs was too busy making real toys. When those boys put their mind to something. It phuckin’ works.
Call Uckrane ask to borrow one of there’s.
Would really love to see how the USA is going to get it’s arse kick during a true drone war.. every US manufacturing in the USA just loves to buttfxck the US government.. $500 dollar for a normal toilet seat when the US military buys it.. how much is the drone fan blades going to cost if made in the USA.. might as well stop dreaming of a drone air command.. because the US citizens cannot afford it.. best to stop waging wars and go home.. peace..
I do think part of the frustration here is actually our EM and EW systems are pretty solid.. the contested environment they are testing through is a pretty robust capability. Failing to mention that part of the equation kind of slants the review and commentary. Trials through higher end EM systems requires higher end capabilities. It is a bit more complex of a problem than presented.
You realize your DJI isn’t being actively jammed, right? Lidar isn’t going to help you with that. These long range military drones aren’t trying to avoid a tree branch at 20 mph.
You can quit glazing China. While this test was a failure for the drone guys, it was a win for the EW guys. Drone tech will forevermore be a battle between those two techs. The fact that EW won this round is good. Dropping drones without using expensive kinetic kill systems is always preferred for the defender.
First, military drones must be made here in USA, avoiding self destruct and all other orders from China or others. Why can’t it be programmed to not jam or even if signals are jammed, by programming it to continue mission by pre programming. This way when signals are jammed, it knows it’s mission without being directed. I admit I know nothing about this subject. Just using common sense.
Using DJI is the same as inviting CCP to your military tactics!
6 guys in a Ukrainian basement could fix that failed drone design in less than a week. But the US will give someone a $240 million budget to overengineer it and make it worse. Eventually after 4 budget overruns they will get it pretty right. But it will cost 700 to 2000 times the Ukrainian solution to deploy. And in the mean time it’s mission will be rendered obsolete by the crazy fast technical advancements in the field warfare/drone warfare.
I could be wrong, but the article seems to be describing a jamming success just as much as a drone failure. Just saying…
The US military could not tell us what drones have been flying over New Jersey the last few years and that went viral and were all over the news a few months ago as they continued there and appeared at military bases in and around Hampton Roads and Newport News, Virginia, USA. Conspiracy theorists seem to have proven Aliyite extremists from the Ethnic Qarsherskiyan Tribe used them and was behind it and were mapping terrain of the ground and sending it to AnsarAllah / Houthi occupied Yemen and to Iran government.