The initial award on the 12-year indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract is $93.5 million, with an overall ceiling of $991.3 million.
“HADES will provide transformational increases in speed, range, payload and endurance for Army aerial intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities,” the service said.
“This is a great day for the continuing effort to modernize the Army’s aerial intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) collection strategy,” Doug Bush, assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, said in a statement. “The thoughtful and disciplined execution of the HADES program strategy will deliver the transformational capabilities we need for the Army’s next-generation aerial ISR aircraft.”
HADES is expected to boast higher airspeeds and longer endurance, making possible intelligence coverage for a much bigger geographical area, deploying in days instead of weeks.
“This will adversely affect adversaries’ ability to plan and maneuver,” the Army said.
The Army launched the HADES program in 2020 to replace the legacy turboprop aircraft fleet which have been in service for more than four decades.
“I am very proud of the entire HADES team, along with our intelligence, aviation and contracting enterprise partners, who have worked diligently to ensure that the Army delivers a new aerial ISR collection capability that meets the Army’s 2030 operational imperatives,” said Brig. Gen. David Phillips, program executive officer, PEO Aviation.
A spokeswoman for SNC said the company’s Dayton hangars will not be involved in the project.
But the company has been on a unmistakeable growth path in Dayton. Sierra Nevada will more than double its Dayton International Airport presence by building two new hangars thanks to a new $13 billion Air Force contract to update the Survivable Airborne Operations Center or “SAOC” airplane, a company executive told the Dayton Daily News in May.
In that project, SNC will militarize Boeing 747 jumbos to serve as aerial havens for U.S. leaders during national emergencies.
This is the kind of expansion leaders at the aviation maintenance, repair and overhaul company had in mind all along when they broke ground on their first hangar in Dayton in 2022.
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