The U.S. Armed Forces are set to receive a substantial number of new loitering munitions nearly $1 billion worth. The Defense Department announced a contract for such systems, with the awardee named as the little-known Mistral Inc. from Maryland.
Before this, the company appeared only in one notable deal: in May 2024 it was awarded a contract to supply an undisclosed quantity of loitering munitions for U.S. Special Operations Forces, with a minimum guaranteed order of just $5,000 and a maximum of $73.5 million. Delivery under that award was to run through May 2029.
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At the time Mistral Inc. was described in the official notice as a small woman‑owned company. A year later the same Mistral Inc. has received a blanket purchase agreement to supply an undisclosed number of drones in multiple lots, totalling $982 million, with deliveries through the end of September 2030.
Mistral Inc. itself is not a manufacturer but represents Israeli UVision in the United States, promoting UVision's Hero family of loitering munitions. UVision also maintains its own U.S. presence.
It appears the Pentagon decided to buy Israeli loitering munitions rather than simply placing another order with a domestic producer despite previous U.S. purchases of home‑grown systems such as AeroVironment's Switchblade. In August 2024 AeroVironment received a comparable contract worth $990 million. Instead of increasing orders from that domestic supplier, the choice was made in favor of UVision. If the rationale was production capacity limits at AeroVironment, the U.S still has other domestic options (for example, Anduril's Altius).
UVisions catalogue covers a wide range, from small quadcopters to long‑range systems with claimed engagement ranges of up to 300 km. Notably, the Hero 1250 flies to about that range and carries a 50 kg warhead.
More widely used models may include the Hero 400, with a roughly 150 km range and a 10 kg warhead, and the fixed‑wing variants Hero 90 and Hero 120, offering ranges of about 45 km and 60 km and warheads of roughly 3 kg and 4.5 kg respectively
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