Italy has contracted with American uncrewed aircraft supplier AeroVironment for a new fleet of Jump 20 vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) UAVs.
Valued at just over €40 million ($46 million) over five years, the 21 April deal will deliver a replacement to Italy’s fleet of Textron RQ-7 Shadow reconnaissance vehicles. Italy originally purchased 16 Shadows in 2010, with additional aircraft since added to the inventory.
The RQ-7 provides surveillance, reconnaissance and target acquisition support to ground combat units in the Italian Army.
Rome made the Jump 20 selection after a competitive evaluation process, mirroring a similar effort currently underway within the US Army – another RQ-7 operator.
AeroVironment was among five manufacturers competing for that contract, known as the Future Tactical Uncrewed Aerial System (FTUAS), but was eliminated from the process in 2023. Northrop Grumman and Sierra Nevada Corporation were knocked out of contention in 2024, leaving Textron and Griffon Aerospace as finalists.
Griffon is offering its Valiant design, which features a quad-rotor configuration with rotating nacelles similar to a tiltrotor. Textron is competing its Aerosonde Mk 4.8 hybrid quad-rotor, which began developmental testing earlier this month with the delivery of two prototype systems to the US Army.
Both aircraft are VTOL-capable, eliminating the pneumatic catapult required for the RQ-7 to get airborne.
AeroVironment recently unveiled an improved version of the Jump 20 dubbed the Jump 20-X. The new configuration is powered by a heavy fuel engine, which will enable the new 20-X to fly using the Pentagon’s standard JP-8 jet fuel, rather than the gasoline burning engine of the standard Jump 20.
This change will unlock the Jump 20-X for use in the ship-based maritime environment, where gasoline represents an unacceptable fire hazard.
Other new additions to the Jump 20-X include a wide area search radar, electro-optical/infrared passive detection system and an automatic identification system ship transponder for maritime operations.
The type can perform intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, electronic warfare or signals intelligence tasks, according to AeroVironment.
