AeroVironment P550

The AeroVironment P550 is a runway-independent, battery-electric eVTOL reconnaissance drone built for the US Army's Long-Range Reconnaissance program, giving battalion commanders up to five hours of modular ISR, relay, electronic-warfare and strike capability.

Overview

The P550 is an American battery-electric, vertical-takeoff-and-landing (eVTOL) unmanned aircraft system built by AeroVironment, the company behind the Switchblade loitering munitions used in Ukraine and the Raven and Puma scouts carried by US infantry. It sits at the top of the Pentagon's Group 2 small-UAS category and was designed from the outset for the US Army's Long-Range Reconnaissance (LRR) requirement: an aircraft that battalion commanders own and task directly, rather than requesting reconnaissance support from brigade aviation. The design pairs a roughly five-hour battery endurance with a 6.8 kg (15 lb) modular payload bay and onboard AI for target recognition and GPS-denied navigation, according to AeroVironment.

The system's significance is procurement as much as engineering. In 2026 the Army placed a $117.3 million firm-fixed-price order for 82 P550 systems — the type's first major production purchase — with delivery compressed into weeks rather than years, part of a deliberate push to raise drone density across US combat formations in light of operational observations from Ukraine, as Army Recognition reported.

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