AAI Corporation, an operating unit of Textron Systems, a Textron Inc has reported that its Shadow UAS have achieved 300,000 cumulative flight hours in service with the U.S. Army and Marine Corps. In fact, 91 percent of these flight hours were amassed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.

"It is gratifying to see how mature our Shadow UAS technology has become in the hands of America's soldiers and Marines," says AAI's Vice President of Unmanned Aircraft Systems Steve Reid.

"The frequency with which we're achieving these milestones is a testament to the robustness of the system, as well as the excellent partnership we have with our customers to ensure our technology is meeting the mark."

In fact, this milestone was reached only 10 months after the systems reached 200,000 total flight hours, and 22 months after the first 100,000 flight hours were accumulated.

This milestone comes on the heels of receipt by AAI of significant orders for two additional systems from the U.S. Army, five additional systems from the Marine Corps and a training system for the National Guard -- all contracted through the U.S. Army Unmanned Aircraft Systems Program Executive Office for Aviation.

To date, a total of 96 Shadow systems have been ordered for use by the Army, Marines and National Guard and 65 have been delivered to these customers.

"America's military services are focused on creating jointness and interoperability, and we're proud to be part of this vital mission with our Shadow UAS program," says AAI Senior Vice President and General Manager Ellen Lord.

"We enable these efficiencies for the Army, National Guard and Marine Corps not only through design, production and delivery of our combat-proven Shadow system technologies, but through state-of-the-art training capabilities and performance based logistics services."