Vanilla UAS Joins Military Exercise
Vanilla UAS communications relay at Valiant Shield 2024. (Photo via Newswire.com)
Platform Aerospace joins the St. Mary’s Around to World series with its participation in a US Navy exercise in the Pacific region.
The company’s Vanilla Ultra-Long Endurance Group 3 UAS provided communication relay services over a 27-hour flight during Valiant Shield 24 in the US Indo-Pacific Command theater on the island of Guam.
Valiant Shield is a multinational field training exercise focused on integrating interoperability in a multi-domain environment. The Navy says the exercise builds real-world proficiency in sustaining joint forces by detecting, locating, tracking, and engaging units at sea, in the air, in space, on land, and in cyberspace in response to a range of mission areas.
Platform Aerospace is based in Hollywood, MD and specializes in manufacturing, aviation modification and prototyping, and cutting-edge aerial ISR products, namely Vanilla Unmanned UAS, a world record-setting, ultra-long endurance unmanned aerial vehicle.
In addition to holding the world record for continuous, un-refueled flight over eight days, 50 minutes, and 47 seconds at Edwards Air Force Base in California, Platform has also supported operations in Greenland measuring snow depth and in Alaska flying with an automated weather routing software tool, encompassing a 1,000-mile round trip over the polar ice cap.
The St. Mary’s County Economic Development Department created an interactive map that shares success stories from businesses around the county.
Most recently, Tobacco Barn Distillery in Hollywood flew barrels of its bourbon in a World War II historic plane to Normandy, France, during the 80th anniversary of the Normandy invasion.
Also, Parraid, a small products-oriented business headquartered in Hollywood, and its Rugged USB 3.0 Hub was used on the Perseverance Mission to Mars in 2020 and accompanied the SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket on its mission to the Moon in 2024. And Velos Rotors, an international company with operations in St. Mary’s, provides drone helicopters for industrial application for agriculture, search and rescue, delivery, and surveillance customers around the world.
