- Pentagon places large order for Skydio X10D drones
- The X10D was used to identify targets in the Ukrainian war
- DJI ban means US departments must look elsewhere
The Pentagon went from “we’d like to order drones” to “here’s $52 million” in 72 hours flat. That’s less time than it takes most departments to approve a new office coffee machine, but the US Army has just placed the largest single-vendor drone order in US military history: just under 3,000 Skydio X10D drones at around $17,300 (around £12,900 / AU$24,700) each.
The speed tells you everything you need to know about the urgency of this drone operation. Standard Pentagon procurement for contracts like this normally takes months, sometimes years.
Instead, the military routed this information through a specially designed commercial vehicle to cut red tape, clearly deciding that these drones needed to reach soldiers yesterday. With U.S. forces currently engaged in the conflict in Iran, there are obvious reasons to hurry – even if there is no evidence that that is where they are headed.
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Along with a large drone order, this is a strong statement that DJI, the company that makes virtually every consumer drone worth owning, has been completely shut out of the U.S. military market.
And it’s not necessarily because Skydio makes better drones — it’s because DJI is Chinese, and in 2026, that’s a huge no-no for the US government.
What kind of drones are these?
The X10D is a so-called “hunter” drone – a flying observer that finds targets so that other explosive-laden kamikaze drones can destroy them.
If you’ve been following the war in Ukraine, you’ll probably have heard of this hunter-killer combo. Cheap reconnaissance drones fly overhead looking for tanks, artillery positions or troop concentrations. Once they spot a suitable target, they transmit the coordinates to FPV racing drones equipped with munitions which finish the job.
It is devastatingly effective, horribly effective, and has redefined modern warfare. The U.S. Army just ordered 3,000 fighters, half of that equation.
The X10D itself is smart technology. It navigates using six cameras (three on top, three on the bottom) that map terrain in real time, meaning it can fly and return home even when GPS is jammed.
Multi-band radio frequency hops to maintain connection on electromagnetically noisy battlefields. And the sensor suite is nothing to write home about: 48MP telephoto lens, 50MP wide angle, 64MP narrow camera, not to mention the first thermal system on a small military drone with a resolution of 640 x 512. It all comes in a 2.1kg package that fits in a backpack and launches in 40 seconds.
Analysis: How Skydio lost to DJI, then still won
Skydio couldn’t beat DJI in the consumer market. After the release of the Skydio 2+, which featured truly impressive autonomous flight technology, it raised the white flag and completely abandoned regular customers. DJI’s consumer alternatives were simply too good, too cheap, and too dominant.
Skydio has instead focused on a much more lucrative market. While DJI was selling Minis and Mavics to photographers and hobbyists, Skydio was approaching the US government. And in February 2022, that strategy paid off when the Army selected Skydio as the sole vendor for its short-range reconnaissance program in a five-year contract worth just under $100 million.
Why Skydio? Here’s the simple reason: The Department of Defense, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security have all declared Chinese drones a threat to national security.
Whether this is entirely fair or driven by genuine technical issues remains up for debate, but the practical result is that US government agencies can no longer purchase DJI drones, meaning Skydio essentially won by default. It’s like being the only restaurant in town open at 2 a.m.; you don’t have to be the tastiest or best value, just be available.
And Skydio is very available. The company’s factory in California can produce drones on an impressive scale: Although each X10D passes through 550 quality checkpoints, one can be assembled every nine minutes. Current production stands at over 1,000 units per month, meaning this order for 3,000 drones only represents three months of production.
The real question is what happens next. Spain has already signed an $18.7 million deal with Skydio, Norway will receive its aviation systems, and you can be sure that allied countries are watching this order very closely.
For DJI, which has dominated the global consumer and professional drone markets for years, the message couldn’t be clearer: The U.S. military chose someone else, and with geopolitical tensions as they are, that decision won’t be reversed anytime soon.
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