AeroVironment eyes new factory, drone launches for Switchblade

In recent years, AeroVironment’s Switchblade loitering munition has become a critical weapon in Ukraine and played a growing role in multiple nations’ arsenals.

Now, AeroVironment is preparing to expand its ability to produce the Switchblade and is working on new ways to launch and control it — including from an MQ-9 Reaper drone.

Brian Young, the AeroVironment executive who oversees the Switchblade program, said Monday the company wants to be ready as the U.S. Army accelerates its own loitering munitions capability through the Low Altitude Stalking and Strike Ordnance, or LASSO, program.

“You’re going to see a lot of shift toward that [LASSO] program in terms of the technologies, and then also the scale,” Young, AeroVironment’s vice president of loitering munitions, said at the Association of the U.S. Army’s conference in Washington.

In late 2026 or early 2027, Young said, AeroVironment plans to open a new production facility in Salt Lake City. That facility will one day produce even more than AeroVironment’s primary production facility in Los Angeles does, he said, and allow the company to boost its monthly Switchblade production from around 500 to several thousand.

The Switchblade is a loitering munition that is launched from a tube, and then pops out small wings and flies to its target like a drone before homing in and detonating. Ukraine’s military has made extensive use of Switchblades as it fights against Russia’s invasion.

AeroVironment is also incorporating more modular capabilities, such as radios and GPS components, into Switchblade as part of an open systems approach, Young said. The modular open systems approach is meant to allow users to “plug and play” different capabilities into a weapon and more easily adapt them to different missions.

Young said the company is putting these changes in place to take advantage of the Army’s acceleration of its LASSO program.

AeroVironment also introduced updated versions of its three Switchblade models at the AUSA conference.

The Switchblade 300 — the lightest and most portable variant — has been updated with an armor-piercing explosively formed penetrator payload, Young said.

Young said AeroVironment self-funded and tested this Switchblade 300 update, and the company expects it to be certified ready for use in 2026, after the Army’s six- to eight-month qualification process. AeroVironment hopes the new version of the 300 will also be approved for sales to foreign militaries.

The 300 was originally designed with a fragmentation payload, Young said, which was better suited for battlefields in Iraq or Afghanistan. But today’s conflicts — particularly Ukraine’s war against Russia’s invasion — have been marked by greater use of tanks or other armored vehicles, he said, leading to the 300’s payload update.

“You look at the war going on in Ukraine, they’re really going after these high-value assets that are heavily fortified,” Young said. “So you need something that can pierce through [a] thicker sort of armor, not just a regular commercial vehicle or personnel.”

The Switchblade 400, he said, is AeroVironment’s offering for LASSO and was tailored to fit that program. It is similar to the heavier-duty Switchblade 600, Young said, including a Javelin multipurpose warhead and optics allowing lengthy standoff range. But AeroVironment shrunk its systems, he said, getting its weight down to less than 40 pounds and making it more portable.

Young expects to the Army to soon announce whether it has chosen the Switchblade 400 for LASSO.

A Switchblade 300 Block 20 loitering munition, made by AeroVironment, is staged at the company's Sea-Air-Space booth in 2024. (Colin Demarest/C4ISRNET)

AeroVironment is also introducing a block 2 version of its Switchblade 600, which is designed for the U.S. military. This version uses the military’s more advanced M code GPS, improved radios, a secondary payload bay and improved processors to do automated target recognition.

The company expects to start delivering that version in early 2026 and scale up production rapidly through the year.

The Switchblade 600’s block 1 is the version most commonly used in Ukraine, Young said, and AeroVironment has built about 3,000 of those so far.

Young said AeroVironment sees a growing market for loitering munitions like the Switchblade and is trying to expand the varieties it can offer militaries.

“This market isn’t going away,” Young said. “It’s not going to flatten. It’s going to increase. … I think there’s a niche for different sizes of Switchblade. You’ll see the 300, the 600 and the 400 still existing long into the future, [and] probably other variants as well that we have in our back pocket.”

For example, Young said, a smaller Switchblade 300 and its launch tube together weigh less than eight pounds. That means a soldier can march into the field with a handful of them on his or her back, and launch it to pierce the armor of a heavy enemy vehicle.

It would be harder for a soldier to carry more than one of the newer, 40-pound Switchblade 400s into the field, Young said. But its Javelin multi-purpose warhead would give that single Switchblade a significant punch, enough to kill an entire tank.

Ukrainian troops, Young said, often bring multiple Switchblade 600s in the back of a truck and set up stations to launch them.

And AeroVironment is experimenting more with mounting banks of Switchblade launchers on manned and unmanned vehicles, including ground vehicles and unmanned surface ships, Young said.

AeroVironment also in recent months worked with General Atomics Aeronautical Systems to successfully test launch a Switchblade 600 from an in-flight MQ-9 Reaper drone. Young said the company worked to modify a standard Switchblade launch tube to hang under the Reaper’s wing and use the Reaper’s satellite link to also control the Switchblade to its target.

“You can, from anywhere in the world now, operate a Switchblade through that satellite link,” Young said.

AeroVironment eyes new factory, drone launches for Switchblade

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