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The Clippers will have their hands full when the season opens trying to contend in the always tough Western Conference after being slapped with the harshest penalties in league history for violating salary cap circumvention rules.

With Kawhi Leonard, James Harden and Ivica Zubac gone from last season’s team, they’ll focus on developing a new core of stars, including rookie Keaton Wagler, when they open play Wednesday by hosing the Sacramento Kings at Intuit Dome.

Another positive for the team: Tyronn Lue is a proven asset as coach and he’ll be tasked with developing and blending in the younger players. Wagler spent the summer building up his body and has potential to be a strong defender.

The league’s year-long investigation is over and the Clippers have a clear path, albeit rocky, to move on and again become competitive in the West. They finished ninth in the conference last season and were eliminated by the Warriors in a play-in game.

Now fully recovered from a foot injury, two-time All-Star guard Darius Garland will be counted on to provide floor leadership. Also returning are former All-Star guard Bradley Beal, guard Kris Dunn, forward Derrick Jones Jr. and center Brook Lopez.

“I think we can surprise a lot of people,” Garland said.

Garland is fully recovered from toe and foot ligament injuries. In 19 games last season, he averaged 19.9 points with 6.4 assists. With a full offseason and training camp, Garland is expected to be one of the team’s top players.

Other young players to watch are guard Kobe Sanders, who had a productive rookie season when averaging 7.3 points and nearly 20 minutes a game as part of the rotation, and center Yanic Konan Niederhauser, who had his rookie season end early because of a foot injury but he showed promise over 41 games.

Forward Brandon Ingram, driving against Clippers forward Derrick Jones Jr. last season, is now a teammate after the Kawhi Leonard trade was completed following the salary cap circumvention investigation.

(Ronald Martinez / Getty Images)

Additions include All-Star forward Brandon Ingram and guard Gradey Dick, who were part of the Leonard trade to Toronto, wing Max Strus, guard Jalen Pickett, forward Baba Miller, forward Isaiah Jackson and forward Nick Martinelli.

“I know [there are] little to no expectations for us this year,” said Ingram, who will miss the start of the season while recovering from May surgery for a partially torn Achilles. “We have enough in the building to compete. This is what we love to do. So, we’ll go out and compete every single night, learn, go on to the next game and get better and better.”

Strus also will be out for a while after injuring his right foot during training camp.

Departed from the team are forward John Collins, guard Bogdan Bogdanovic, forward Nicolas Batum and wing Bennedict Mathurin.

Also noteworthy: owner Steve Ballmer won’t be sitting courtside after being banned by the NBA for a year as part of the team’s steep punishment for circumventing salary-cap rules. Top basketball executive Lawrence Frank has been banned for six months. The penalties included the loss of five first-round draft picks.

“I give our players a lot of credit … the leadership is great [and] the morale is great, even in these tough situations,” Lue said at the start of training camp. “That’s good to see, when you have your players coming in every day, giving everything they have; a lot of teams don’t have that.”

Staff reports contributed to this story.

The Savannah Bananas embarked on their first so-called world tour five years ago. It included only one stop — in Mobile, Ala.

As the unique brand of baseball entertainment known as Banana Ball expanded into a six-team league, the tours have grown in size and scope but never actually ventured out of the United States.

That will change next year. The 2027 Banana Ball Championship League tour will visit 79 stadiums across 74 cities, including the first-ever international stops. Four teams will travel to Mexico, with the Bananas playing the Texas Tailgaters in Monterrey on Feb. 5 and 6 and the Party Animals taking on the Loco Beach Coconuts in Tijuana on Feb. 12 and 13.

The tour swings to Canada in late summer, with the Bananas playing the Indiananapolis Clowns in Toronto on Aug. 14 and 15 and the Tailgaters facing the Party Animals in Winnipeg on Aug. 26 and 28.

“We got a lot of criticism over the years. ‘It’s not a world tour, you’re playing in one city! It’s not a world tour, you’re playing in seven cities in the southeast!’” Banana Ball creator and owner Jesse Cole said Thursday on ESPN2. “But we saw where we could go, and we’ve always had a vision to create 1 billion fans, one fan at a time. And over the last two or three years, we’ve heard from a lot of different countries all over the world.”

The Savannah Bananas, featuring Banana Ball creator and owner Jesse Cole in his signature yellow suit and derby hat, perform onstage during the 2026 ESPY Awards in New York.

(Mike Coppola / Getty Images)

Cole said he expects the 2027 tour to draw an estimated 4.3 million fans.

“Everything we do is do one experiment and then see where it can go,” he said. “And this crazy experiment of Banana Ball has gone some places we never imagined.”

Another new stop next year will be Dodger Stadium, where the Bananas will play the Firefighters on April 23 and 24. The same teams also will face off at Angel Stadium on July 2 and 3, marking the third consecutive year the Bananas have played at the venue.

The schedule reveal show included a number of announcements, including the debut of a concept called Banana Ball 360 on June 26 at Notre Dame Stadium. Two baseball fields will be set up on opposite ends of the stadium, with the game taking place on each during alternating innings.

“I do believe that fans at that show are going to be able to see things they’ve never seen before, and also every single seat is a great seat,” Cole said. “And that was the idea.”

Also announced were a new Disney-produced film documenting the growth of Banana Ball, which will premiere June 12 at Atlanta’s Truist Park, and the league’s third cruise, “Bananaland at Sea + Puerto Rico,” in January 2028. The cruise will depart from the Port of Miami and will feature a Banana Ball game at Hiram Bithorn Stadium in San Juan.

The UH-60 Black Hawk has been the rugged workhorse of U.S. Army aviation for nearly 50 years, with around 4,000 examples currently in service with 36 nations worldwide. Many of these helicopters, and new aircraft coming off the line, are set to fly as far out as 2070, and Sikorsky is curating a suite of upgrades to keep them valuable assets for the future fight. A new “digital backbone” is designed to underpin swift technological insertions such as launched effects, with related initiatives including the provision of more power to lug greater payloads, and the fully-autonomous U-Hawk cargo drone variant.

“As part of an overall “Black Hawk 2070” modernization effort we’re developing a number of complementary capabilities, including our U-Hawk uncrewed cargo variant, which we plan to fly later this year,” Jason Wrigley, Sikorsky’s director of business development for Black Hawk, told TWZ at the company’s Stratford plant in Connecticut.

“A new digital backbone for the Black Hawk is at an advanced design phase in our labs and it’s designed to provide interfaces throughout the aircraft that will provide power, data, a network, cooling and most importantly, open architecture interfaces that enable the easy integration of new equipment, such as sensors. We see this as a core building block for the next generation of Black Hawk, along with new engines and other airframe improvements designed to futureproof the platform.”

The new digital backbone is designed to work in concert with a modern, software-driven strategy that meets the Army’s Modular Open Systems Approach and the desire to add technologies cheaper, faster, and more easily. Wrigley says that as customers identify new capabilities and needs for their Black Hawks, the digital backbone will be sufficiently efficient to permit customization even on a mission-by-mission basis. Sikorsky is also introducing a new modular nose to the H-60, which is reconfigurable with sufficient volume to support even more sensors and electronics.

“There’s a big focus on open architecture and that ability to quickly plug-and-play,” says Wrigley. “The new modular nose will change the look of the Black Hawk up front to provide even more space for equipment that will work directly with the new digital architecture.”

The new modular nose will give the Black Hawk more than twice the internal volume of the original nose section and it’s designed to provide space for internal electronics and an integrated mount for external sensor pods. It is designed to provide sufficient space to accommodate electronics that enable roles such as search and rescue, drone control, and flying in degraded environments, and it will also house some of the equipment required as the Black Hawk’s autonomous capabilities expand.

Joshua Powers spent 22 years as an Army Aviation officer flying the Black Hawk, and he’s well qualified for his new role with Sikorsky handling business development for rapid capabilities insertions. “Army units know the Black Hawk inside out; how to fly it, maintain it, and use it to maximum effect. The upgrades we are developing will bring new capabilities faster, without time-consuming and complex changes to sustainment, training, and operations, plus we are adding more range, more payload, and more power to meet the demands of the Indo-Pacific region.”

“I find it amazing to pair new technology with a rugged platform like the Black Hawk. These new innovations are needed to meet the needs of the new complex battlefield. The fight I fought in Iraq is very different from the current operating environment and what future warriors are going to go up against, and what we’re asking them to do is very different from what came before.”

Bringing autonomous co-pilots to the Black Hawk

Autonomy is a central pillar of Sikorsky’s strategy for the future Black Hawk. The company’s MATRIX autonomy software is now being matured on a UH-60M variant, and while it’s not necessarily designed to completely replace pilots, MATRIX will assume some of their workload, making flying safer and simpler as mission sets grow increasingly complex and dangerous. “Pilots that are controlling collaborative drones, for example, need to be able to focus on the drone mission, and autonomy will help lighten their cognitive load,” explains Wrigley.

“The standard Black Hawk crew operates with two pilots. Adding our MATRIX autonomy system gives the operator options – a single pilot could fly without an unbearable workload and still fulfil a mission commander role, for example. The Army could then operate the Black Hawk with no pilots at all when that’s the appropriate option.”

Sikorsky’s MATRIX autonomy has been developed on the company’s UH-60A fly-by-wire Optionally Piloted Black Hawk, which has been tested by Sikorsky and Army aviators. MATRIX has accumulated more than 1,000 flight hours across 500 tests and demonstrations. It has already been integrated on over 20 different platforms, including on the Black Hawk for testing by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the U.S. Army in multiple exercises.

“We delivered the first UH-60MX to the Army earlier this year,” says Wrigley. The delivery marked the first full authority fly-by-wire and optionally-piloted UH-60 in the Army fleet. “They are using it for testing and soldier feedback to develop tactics, techniques and procedures for the autonomous Black Hawk. We have since received a contract to deliver three more MX aircraft to the Army.” 

MATRIX autonomy kits have now been installed on all three U.S. Army Black Hawk models; the UH-60A, UH-60L and UH-60M. Sikorsky plans to incorporate autonomy options into all Black Hawks as they are built, plus the MATRIX system will be able to be retrofitted to existing examples.

Powers is well aware of the benefits autonomy will provide from complex combat operations to more mundane day-to-day missions. “Flying at night and seeing the tracer fire coming up at you, things like that, I honestly feel that’s not the big threat. It’s when you’re going to land and there’s just a big dust cloud. When you’re tired, you aren’t as focused. Having MATRIX, whether that’s with one, two, or no pilots, it’s about that reduced workload on the mission. Pilots won’t be as fatigued, plus they have the safety net of a fully autonomous aircraft that can, if needed, land in all of those difficult environments. It will give commanders more operational flexibility and the ability to mitigate risk in less-than-ideal conditions dictated by the enemy or weather.”

“The Black Hawk operation isn’t just about pilots, it’s also that integrated four-person crew. As a pilot, you’re relying on your senses and also on the guys in the back to watch out and tell you where you’re going. MATRIX is just going to help that team effort and put you in a better position to bring the crew back safely. It integrates all the systems and sensors and uses altitude, airspeed, radar altimeter, drift indications, and puts the fly-by-wire technology to where it can make rapid adjustments and changes based on what it’s seeing with the sensors.”

The volume of testing, the maturity, and the confidence in MATRIX helped Sikorsky to develop the S-70UAS, or U-Hawk, which was unveiled in 2025. The U-Hawk project essentially removes the cockpit and its associated equipment from a Black Hawk and replaces the front end with cargo doors to provide a huge internal space as a supply drone.

“We acquired a used UH-60L Black Hawk as the template for our initial U-Hawk. We added the clamshell doors and that was the actual aircraft that we showed at AUSA last year,” says Wrigley. “Since then we’ve been adding the fly-by-wire and integrating the MATRIX autonomy. It’s currently in our innovations hangar in Bridgeport, Connecticut, getting the final work done and it will make its first flight as a U-Hawk later this year.”

Sikorsky sees the U-Hawk as a natural evolution for the Black Hawk in contested logistics missions, when cargo needs to be moved but the threat is sufficiently high that it drives a need for uncrewed platforms to tackle the mission. 

“We’re spending a lot of time on the U-Hawk and its roles. As well as being an uncrewed cargo helicopter, it can also be a truck that can carry a large volume of launched effects,” explains Wrigley. “There are Black Hawk models on the market right now that are being divested, and we see those as being an ideal option for conversion to U-Hawk configuration to affordably introduce this capability to the market.”

Drone dispenser

The integration of small drones dubbed ‘launched effects’ into rotary-wing operations is a major initiative from the Army as a new means to collect intelligence for commanders on the battlefield, relay communications, jam and distract enemy emitters, and act as loitering munitions. These mini air-launched drones can be carried and fired from stub-wing-mounted launchers, with other concepts seeing larger volumes of them carried inside the cabin as a “mega-pack,” with Sikorsky seeing both as being highly-applicable to both the Black Hawk and the U-Hawk.

This is exactly the kind of capability that the digital backbone in the Black Hawk is intended to open the door to; installing plug-and-play drone command kits, which could enable the Black Hawk to act as a “drone mothership” to launch, task, and command swarms of multi-mission launched effects.

The Army tested its latest operational concepts for launched effects during the Project Convergence Capstone 6 demonstration event this summer. This annual exercise is designed to develop concepts and tactics as well as gather soldier feedback, as it works to transition new systems into service. The latest exercise built on previous launched effects testing on the Black Hawk, when a UH-60M deployed Anduril’s Altius-700 launched effects that then operated as an autonomous hunter-killer team to locate targets, share data on those targets, and then strike them, without the need for the Black Hawk to expose itself to threats.

“As a young Black Hawk pilot, the OH-58 Kiowa Warrior was the primary scout platform, but it was limited by range and its ability to be detected,” explains Joshua Powers. “Today, we launch small drones that can remain unseen and they can give us real-time feedback. Launched effects make our lift assets more capable.”

“We see the Black Hawk as the aircraft capable of carrying, deploying and then acting as an airborne mission command node for launched effects,” adds Jason Wrigley. “In the operational environment of the future, it’s really about the mass of those launched effects. This isn’t about carrying one or two of them, this is about carrying and controlling a large number of them.”

“We’ve tested them on the stub-wings, but we are also exploring what we call “quiver” – that large number of launched effects inside the cabin in that “mega-pack.” This creates additional opportunities for mass that we think is going to be really critical. We’ve done a lot of operational analysis in concert with the Army on what the right mix of launched effects might be to extend the standoff range of the aircraft to improve survivability – which is of course what it’s all about – but the right mix will ultimately come down to the mission. We have seen a lot of testing over the past few years, so we do believe this is a capability that can be introduced operationally soon on the Black Hawk.”

More power for more missions

To support the increased lift that might be needed for a missionized Black Hawk lugging large payloads, including an arsenal of launched effects, Sikorsky is well along in development of a new engine that is designed to create over 1,000 pounds of increased payload capacity and increased range for the Black Hawk. The T901 Improved Turbine Engine (ITE) from GE Aerospace provides 50 percent more horsepower over the existing T700 engines in the UH-60M.

“One of the key building blocks of the future of the Black Hawk are the twin ITEs as we look to expand the mission capability and the utility of this aircraft for decades to come,” explains Wrigley. Sikorsky began initial testing of the first UH-60M with ITE in January 2025. “We are actively in the test program right now at our test facility in West Palm Beach, Florida. The twin ITEs in each Black Hawk and that additional power translates into some pretty significant operational opportunities. Since our first flight with ITE in May 2025 we’ve flown the aircraft with the new engine for over 50 hours and up to 17,000 ft above sea level.”

Sikorsky is accompanying the addition of the new engines with a significant expansion of the fuel tank to increase capacity and range. This is being done without impinging on cabin volume and thus retaining the important ability to transport 11 combat troops, while increasing range by around 100 nautical miles. “The T901 also improves fuel efficiency and eases maintenance – so overall we are really improving the payload capacity of the aircraft. We’ll be getting to the milestone C production decision on ITE within the next couple of years, and at that point it will become a core element of the Black Hawk program going forward,” Wrigley explains.

Inside Sikorsky’s “Black Hawk 2070” Plan With Drones, Autonomy, And The Pilotless U-Hawk.

Building Black Hawks

Touring the Black Hawk production line in Stratford, Connecticut, it’s a hive of activity. Many of the major components for each helicopter are manufactured here. The long final assembly line sees teams of workers busily constructing UH-60M and HH-60M medevac Black Hawks for both domestic and foreign military sales customers, along with new HH-60W Combat Rescue Helicopters for the U.S. Air Force and MH-60R Seahawks.

“We’re designing all of these upgrades with the intent that they will all be available off the production line in new build aircraft, as well as in kit form for upgrades to existing assets in the field,” notes Wrigley. “Here in Stratford in what we call the “back shop” we build all the rotor blades, gearboxes, and many other components that go into each aircraft. We are already thinking ahead and we’ve invested significantly into additive manufacturing, with 11 parts on the Black Hawk today that are additively manufactured. It’s a great place to start, but there’s a long way to go and we’re working on qualifying more challenging components and load-bearing parts.”

Cohesively, the digital backbone, larger fuel tank, new engines, and the new modular nose will all be introduced on the production floor in the coming years to pave the way for that increased payload capacity to carry fully-equipped combat troops, supplies, and all the new kit needed for the future fight and the Black Hawk’s role as a multi-mission forward battlefield node. The autonomous U-Hawk and the optionally piloted flexibility afforded by MATRIX – all of these pieces of the future Black Hawk are presently coming together under an overarching effort.

“The future Black Hawk will be that complement to the future long-range MV-75 Cheyenne II,” says Powers. “These won’t be a one-for-one replacement for every Black Hawk currently in the fleet – the MV-75 has a specific purpose and function that the Black Hawk isn’t designed to do. What the Black Hawk can do with these new upgrades is shape the battlefield and with its autonomy be out there flying missions into contested environments.”

“Those homeland missions are equally necessary. I recall talking about this in flight school when choosing an aircraft to fly, how it’s one thing to be deployed on combat missions, but it’s also about being back in the homeland on disaster relief when you need the Black Hawk to go out and save lives, those kinds of missions the Army National Guard does – it really underlines the importance and versatility of the Black Hawk.”

Over the past 50 years and looking ahead to the next 50, continuing the proven legacy of the Black Hawk will mean constant evolution to meet new missions and needs. Sikorsky’s task is for all of these new elements to meld into a future Black Hawk that’s ready to roll off this production line soon, that still also provides the same dependable, rugged capability for the Army at home or overseas, well into the future.

Seven companies are said to now be in the running to develop a lower-cost and highly modular drone to succeed the MQ-9A Reaper. Though the field has some well-established entrants and some far lesser known names, the inclusion of Otto Aerospace in this group is particularly unexpected and interesting to examine. Otto has made bold, but still unrealized pronouncements about disrupting the aviation industry with potentially revolutionary high-efficiency designs that could have civilian and military applications. TWZ has been steadily tracking the company’s developments since we first reported on the existence of the Celera 500L aircraft back in 2017.

Air & Space Forces Magazine first reported on Wednesday that Otto Aerospace (previously Otto Aviation), as well as Anduril, Chaos Industries, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Grid Aero, Shield AI, and Swarm Aero, had “made the cut” for the Massed Modular Aircraft (MMA) program, citing anonymous sources. The MMA effort formally kicked off in July, and the Air Force is now aiming to have a fleet of at least 500 of these drones by 2032.

An industry source has also told us that these seven companies are moving ahead in the MMA program. The Air Force has not yet offered an official confirmation.

“The Air Force’s partnership with the Defense Innovation Unit is accelerating requirements development and rapid prototyping by leveraging commercial innovation and reducing timelines,” a spokesperson for the service said when we asked for more information. “We continue working with industry to inform requirements and assess potential solutions as we shape the future MMA capability.”

TWZ has also reached out to all of the companies on the list for more details.

As mentioned, it is unexpected and especially interesting to see Otto named here in the context of MMA. The company’s core design philosophy centers around what is called laminar flow. Broadly speaking, this refers to liquid or gaseous “fluids,” including air, flowing in smooth, regular layers across a surface with little to no mixing between them. In aviation, optimization for laminar flow translates to reduced drag and improved aerodynamic efficiency. This, in turn, can offer a host of benefits, including when it comes to fuel economy, extended range, and overall performance, as well as reductions in operating costs.

With this in mind, all of the designs that Otto has shown to date, starting with the Celera 500L, have been based around teardrop-shaped fuselages to maximize laminar flow benefits. Many of them also feature long, slender glider-like wings. The sudden and unannounced appearance of the very exotic and futuristic-looking Celera 500L at the Southern California Logistics Airport in 2017, at which time nothing was known about the aircraft or its manufacturer, caused a stir in the broader aviation community. TWZ was the first to report on the plane and then unmasked its identity.

The Celera 500: Technology Demonstrator with a Lasting Impact

On top of the laminar flow-optimized shaping, the Celera 500L was a pusher-propeller design powered by a single high-efficiency, turbocharged, multi-fuel V12 piston engine. A relevant patent held by Otto also describes a novel exhaust system with a heat exchanger that provides an additional boost in thrust.

Otto conducted an extensive test campaign with the Celera 500L, taking the aircraft up to an altitude of 15,000 feet and to a speed of 250 miles per hour. The company posited that this would translate to a cruising speed of around 460 miles per hour at the design’s intended operating ceiling of 50,000 feet.

Development focus at the company has since shifted to the jet-powered Phantom 3500, which has a much revised design compared to the Celera 500L. Otto has said previously that it expects this aircraft to burn just 115 gallons of fuel per hour, further underscoring the benefits of its laminar-flow-centric approach. Comparably sized business jets like the Bombardier Challenger 350, Cessna Citation Latitude, and Embraer Praetor 500 consume around 300 gallons per hour, according to the company, citing data from Jet Support Services, Inc. (JSSI).

It is also worth noting here that Otto has already developed a drone with a “highly laminar-flow efficient airframe” for the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The company announced the successful completion of a flight test campaign in May. The pusher-propeller design has a teardrop-shaped main body, a glider-type main wing, and a T-tail at the end of a boom that extends to the rear of the aircraft. DARPA plans to use that drone to demonstrate laser-based power beaming technology that could be used to relay electricity to forward operating locations. The technology could also dramatically extend the endurance of an electrically-powered drone, potentially allowing it to stay in the air indefinitely.

Otto Aerospace DARPA EOS Flight Test

The drone for DARPA is far too small to meet the Air Force’s MMA requirements. However, “the program leveraged Otto’s aerodynamic expertise to design and flight-test an unmanned vehicle that could inform design parameters for future energy-relay systems or more extremely fuel-efficient, long-endurance platforms,” per a press release Otto put out in May.

TWZ has highlighted in the past how the general range, fuel economy, and other advantages inherent to Otto’s designs could be even more pronounced in a configuration that does not need to support a human crew. Furthermore, Otto has previously shown militarized concepts, crewed and uncrewed. As we’ve written in our earlier coverage of the Celera 500L:

“Though primarily aimed at civilian and commercial operators, Otto’s new website also highlights the potential for the Celera 500L to use its long-range and high fuel economy to support military missions, including transporting personnel and cargo, as well as conducting intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions. A version of the aircraft, possibly unmanned, equipped with any number of sensor suites could be an impressive persistent surveillance and communications relay platform able to orbit over particular areas for very long periods of time and cover a wide swath of the battlefield from its high perch. It could also be able to reposition itself quickly and transit to its tasking area at jet-like speeds.”

While we have yet to see an explicit MMA proposal from Otto, a laminar flow-optimized drone could be a very attractive offering, given the program’s focus on reducing costs while having an unrefueled combat radius of at least 2,300 nautical miles, among other capabilities. A more efficient design could further translate to a drone that needs less fuel to meet range and other requirements, which, in turn, could allow for a smaller and/or cheaper design overall. Weight and physical space savings afforded by reduced fuel demand could be used to increase ordnance and other payload capacity, too. You can read more about what is known about the MMA requirements here.

There are more companies beyond Otto in the running. With the Air Force aiming to buy hundreds of MMA drones in the coming years, there will be stiff competition.

General Atomics, which developed and produced the MQ-9A, has publicly put forward its own proposal for a successor, called Wildfire. The new drone draws heavily on experience with the Reaper, as well as other drones in the company’s portfolio, and you can read more about what is known about that design here. General Atomics declined to offer additional comment in response to questions regarding the current state of the MMA program. As an aside, General Atomics is also now on contract to build higher-end FQ-42 Vengeance drones for the Air Force, one of two designs intended for higher-end air combat the service is acquiring under its Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program.

The other company building CCA drones for the Air Force is Anduril, with its FQ-44 Fury, and it has now also been named in relation to the MMA effort. Anduril has unveiled two other very different tactical drones since 2025, the twin-engine hybrid-electric tail-sitting Omen, designed primarily for surveillance and reconnaissance, and Thunder, an armed tiltrotor pitched as an uncrewed companion for crewed rotorcraft. Neither of those uncrewed aircraft would seem to directly align with the stated MMA requirements, but might serve as a starting place. Anduril also has a history now of developing new uncrewed platforms and other systems discreetly, and sharing them with the public only when they have become relatively mature.

What design Shield AI might be offering is unknown. The MMA requirements would seem to sit between the company’s V-BAT drone, which is in service with several armed forces today, including in the United States and Ukraine, and the much higher-end X-BAT that is now in development. Shield AI has been working to expand on the V-BAT design, including plans to integrate air-launched munitions. Both V-BAT and X-BAT are also vertical-takeoff and landing designs. Beyond drones, Shield AI remains a major developer of artificial intelligence-driven autonomy packages for the U.S. military and others.

Unveiling the Future of Defense Tech: Shield AI’s V-BAT Teams for Autonomous Missions

X-BAT: Earth Is Our Runway

Earlier this month, newcomer Swarm Aero unveiled a new drone with performance and capabilities that align with the stated MMA requirements earlier this month. Called Gamera, the design has a single propeller at the front of a small central fuselage, together with sponsons holding large fuel cells on either side and a twin-boom tail configuration broadly reminiscent of the OV-10 Bronco light attack aircraft, as TWZ previously reported on in more detail.

Meet Gamera: A New Category of Group 5 Strike and Sensing UAS

Grid Aero is publicly developing a twin-engine cargo drone called the Lifter Lite, in part with funding from AFWERX, the Air Force’s internal technology incubator. Whether the company might work to adapt the Lifter Lite, which has been undergoing testing at least on the ground, to meet the MMA requirements or has proposed something entirely different is not known.

The last firm on the list, Chaos Industries, does not appear to show any drone designs on its website at the time of writing. It is primarily known as a developer of radar systems, especially for use in counter-drone systems. The company declined to comment in response to TWZ queries regarding the MMA program.

To reiterate, the Air Force still has not confirmed the full list of MMA program contenders. Otto’s participation would be a standout, but the field as it is understood now features a number of very established drone makers, as well as emerging start-ups, all vying for a very lucrative opportunity. On top of the potential just to supply hundreds of drones upfront, those uncrewed aircraft look set to be a key part of the Air Force’s force structure for years to come, and will need to be supported throughout their lifecycles. The MMA requirements put heavy emphasis on modularity and open-architecture systems to allow for the rapid integration of new and improved capabilities and functionality down the line.

The Air Force has also previously raised the possibility of selecting multiple vendors to produce designs under the MMA program, or to pursue follow-on rounds of competition to help meet its operations requirements. This is exactly how the service has been running the CCA program, and has already led to the aforementioned production contracts with General Atomics and Anduril. In addition, the Air Force is targeting a base $10 million unit cost for each MMA drone, a price point that would help make losses more tolerable, and could open the door to acquiring a fleet of far more than 500 examples.

It is also important to remember that the Air Force has tried and failed on several occasions to develop and field an MQ-9A replacement. As TWZ has previously explored in great detail, the service’s view of what that drone should be has also evolved over time, with the current MMA program squarely focused on a more affordable option that does not put a heavy premium on survivability. The Air Force has acknowledged potential budget and other hurdles to its new effort. At the same time, heavy continued operational demand for Reapers, coupled with dozens of losses in the course of the war with Iran, as well as other operations in and around the Middle East in recent years, have put major new emphasis on finally finding a successor.

Overall, beyond what is already known about potential MMA offerings, it will be very interesting to see what Otto and the other contenders put forward to finally succeed the iconic Reaper.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

The In Memoriam segment at the 78th Emmy Awards opened with a tribute to Catherine O’Hara from her movie and TV kids — Macaulay Culkin, Annie Murphy and Dan Levy.

“There are all kinds of words I could use to describe Catherine,” Culkin said as he took the stage with the “Schitt’s Creek” stars. “She was encouraging, she was warm, she was funny, but the word that I think of is ‘mama.’”

O’Hara, of course, played Culkin’s mother in “Home Alone” and “Home Alone 2.”

“She wasn’t just a wife and mother to [husband] Bo and [sons] Matthew and Luke. She was my mom. She was our mama,” Culkin said, looking toward Murphy and Levy. “And by extension, she’s all of our mama…. She may have forgotten me twice, but we will always remember her.”

Murphy and Levy also shared personal anecdotes about their TV mom. Murphy spoke about O’Hara’s laugh, and the many interactions she’s had with fans “that remind [her] how profoundly Catherine has impacted the world … because she brought us joy.” Levy shared what it was like to work with O’Hara and how she taught him to “always say yes.”

Singer-songwriter Noah Kahan performed a cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” as images of actors, writers, directors and other industry figures who died this year were projected onto the stage.

Among those honored in the segment were James Van Der Beek, Hayden Panettiere, Eric Dane, Vincent Pastore, Hal Williams, Tim Curry, Shelley Fabares, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Anthony Head, Diane Ladd, Sid Krofft, Ted Turner and Bob Mackie.

The segment closed with tributes to James Burrows and Rob Reiner from Jamie Lee Curtis.

“For over 1,000 episodes of television, the great James Burrows set a standard of comedy directing that will be cherished and studied for generations to come,” Curtis said. “And sadly, last year, we lost another cherished legend. Our beloved Meathead, Rob Reiner.”

Reiner won a posthumous Emmy for guest actor in a comedy series for his work on “The Bear” earlier this month. Curtis said Reiner broke the record set by his father, Carl Reiner, for the longest gap between acting Emmys.

“He was generous and kind and funny as hell and a friend to all,” Curtis said. “We all miss Rob and Michele [Singer] and all those we lost this year.”

The ceremony also featured a tribute to Dolly Parton earlier in the evening with Sally Field and Reba McEntire.