Back in May 2022, the Ukrainian Defense Forces were already full throttle mastering secret American drones called Phoenix Ghost, as reports said at the time. These allegedly backpack-sized unmanned aerial vehicles were developed in the United States at a rapid pace and repeatedly supplied to Ukraine. However, until recently, little was known about this project.
First photos appeared only in October 2024, revealing that Phoenix Ghost is in fact not a single drone but a whole family of them from AEVEX Aerospace. Names of the products in this series were disclosed: Disruptor, Dagger, Dominator, and Atlas, the last one still remaining shrouded in total secrecy. By that time, the Pentagon had ordered $581 million worth of Phoenix Ghost drones for Ukraine but the number told nothing because the price per unit was unknown.
Read more: Phoenix Ghost Details: Creator Reveals the Warhead Type in Ukraine's Mysterious Drones
That is, until Forbes was allowed to the production facilities at AEVEX Aerospace company, an American enterprise with no prior experience in making unmanned aerial systems on its own before developing the Phoenix Ghost, although it participated in creating the MQ-1 Predator.
To cut the story short, the first drone of the family produced was the Dagger, the price is USD 49,000 per unit, according to Forbes reporters. The manufacturer stressed that even in cases where the UAV was shot down by russian air defense, it still became useful since it forced the russians to spend missiles that were much more expensive than their target.
As the battlefield in Ukraine evolved and so did the needs of Ukrainian Defense Forces, AEVEX developed the Disruptor, valued at $69,000 in the basic configuration. An upgraded version also exists but the price for this one is kept secret.
To draw a parallel, the production cost of a Switchblade 600 anti-tank loitering munition is estimated at $200,000 apiece, although worth noting that this product, made by AeroVironment, is positioned as a more technologically advanced weapon than its peer.
The article also outlines the development history of Phoenix Ghost. It began in 2022 when the U.S. Department of Defense was looking for a supplier who could make and send drones to Ukraine as quickly as possible, literally "to prevent tanks from entering Kyiv." In the end, AEVEX Aerospace teamed up with another drone manufacturer, Tribe Aerospace, they were given the extremely difficult task of delivering 121 Daggers under the code name Phoenix Ghost within three months.
Lastly, it is noted that the project has already provided more than 5,000 drones of the Phoenix Ghost family to Ukraine, and thus effectively became the largest American supplier of UAVs to Ukraine.
Earlier, Defense Express reported how Ukraine's real-combat experience in operating unmanned aerial systems helped the Pentagon's Defense Innovation Unit to identify and fix drone development blunders, as well as crack the ice to rejuvenate the "paralyzed" administrative system, unwilling to change its old ways around uncrewed equipment.
Read more: Unmanned Ground Vehicles and Drones Lead Ukraine’s First Infantry-Free Assault Near Kharkiv
