P550

The P550 is AeroVironment's autonomous Group 2 electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) UAS, designed for long-range battalion-level reconnaissance. The US Army awarded AeroVironment a $117 million contract for 82 P550 systems in early June 2026, through the Army's UAS Marketplace Basic Ordering Agreement, placing persistent ISR directly under battalion command without requiring aviation-unit support. At approximately $1.43 million per unit, the P550 sits at the high end of the Army's tactical-drone cost spectrum, contrasting with the Skydio X10D's $20,800 price point and representing the deliberate exquisite-tier complement to attritable mass. The system carries up to 6.8 kg of payload, has over five hours of endurance on all-battery power, a wingspan of approximately 5.2 metres, and onboard AI for target recognition in GPS-denied environments.

AeroVironment (AVAV) was founded in 1971 by Paul MacCready and is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. The company built the Raven and Puma family of hand-launched small drones that equipped US ground forces from the 2000s onwards and has since expanded into larger Group 3 and Group 4 systems including the Switchblade loitering munition. The P550 represents AeroVironment's answer to Army demand for a medium-class VTOL drone that can operate from austere locations without a fixed Runway, bridging the gap between hand-launched sUAS and larger fixed-wing systems.

The P550 contract was announced days before Eurosatory and is cited in the briefing as the exquisite-tier contrast to Skydio's cost-collapse data point: the same Army that bought 2,500 X10D units at $20,800 each also bought 82 P550s at $1.43 million each in the same procurement window, signalling a deliberate two-tier acquisition strategy rather than a pure shift to cheap mass.