Analysis from the Forge & Flight team on UAS technology, defense acquisition, domestic manufacturing, and the regulatory landscape.
May 20, 2026
Most commercial OSINT products deliver data volume without analytical value. What defense contractors and corporate security teams actually need is finished intelligence — assessed, sourced, and decision-ready. Here is what that looks like.
Read More →May 13, 2026
Achieving a perfect SPRS 110/110 against NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 2 as a small defense manufacturer is not common — but it is achievable with the right approach. Here is what it took and why it matters for DoD contract eligibility.
Read More →May 13, 2026
NDAA Section 848 imposes strict requirements on UAS procurement across the DoD. This guide covers exactly what procurement officers should require from vendors — component documentation, BOM traceability, and how to verify compliance before award.
Read More →May 13, 2026
Forge & Flight Holdings is headquartered in Fayetteville, NC — adjacent to Fort Bragg — deliberately. The MICC-Fort Bragg ecosystem awards hundreds of millions annually in small business contracts. Here is what the opportunity looks like from the inside.
Read More →May 9, 2026
Forge & Flight is supporting The Project Initiative Foundation’s STEM Warriors Academy Drone Camp — a free, five-day hands-on UAS program for Fayetteville youth ages 6 through 13. Morning and afternoon sessions are available May 26–30. Registration and sponsorship information at project-initiative.org/events.
Read More →May 6, 2026
The Blue UAS Cleared List is widely trusted by procurement officers as proof of NDAA compliance. The architecture of the certification process, documented supply chain failures, and a structural conflict of interest in its assessment framework mean that trust needs to be informed — not automatic.
Read More →April 28, 2026
SOCOM’s FY2027 request cuts the OA-1K buy and redirects dollars toward 100+ small unmanned systems paired with MQ-9 motherships. The shift is a formal budget expression of lessons special operations forces have already learned operationally — and it has direct implications for the companies and trainers positioned to meet that demand.
Read More →April 15, 2026
JIATF-401’s C-UAS Marketplace is buying, and the 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg is already field-testing systems it funded. The new procurement vehicle changes how units access counter-drone capability — and what that means for vendors and operators in the defense UAS ecosystem.
Read More →April 5, 2026
A structural shift in defense acquisition — driven by OTA authority, SBIR expansion, NDAA supply chain requirements, and the failure of large primes to deliver on certain categories of advanced technology — is opening contract space that small manufacturers are filling and large primes are not.
Read More →April 1, 2026
The Defense Innovation Unit’s Blue UAS program is the fastest path to a DoD-cleared small UAS acquisition. Here’s what it means, who qualifies, and what procurement officers need to understand before engaging the market.
Read More →March 24, 2026
FAA Part 108 BVLOS rulemaking is in final stages. When it drops, the operational envelope for compliant UAS programs expands significantly — but only for programs with the right platforms and operator certification in place. Now is the time to understand what changes.
Read More →March 19, 2026
The same decision-making failure mode that kills Special Operations missions is operating in government UAS procurement — and the cost is measured in warehouses full of expensive equipment that nobody is flying.
Read More →March 5, 2026
The rehearsal discipline that prevents operational failure in Special Operations is directly applicable to UAS platform evaluation — and most procurement processes skip it entirely.
Read More →February 18, 2026
The NDAA drone ban exposed a structural gap in the domestic UAS market. Agencies aren’t waiting because they’re slow — they’re waiting because none of the existing categories fully serves the requirement.
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