RDT&E Project · President's Budget PB2027

Aviation Systems Advanced Development

Project SF100·PE 1160403BB — Aviation Systems·Defense-Wide·BA7
FY2027 Request
$125.2M
▲ 337% vs FY2026
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Project SF100 — Aviation Systems Advanced Development requests $125.2M in FY2027, 58% of the $216.8M requested for program element 1160403BB, up 337% on FY2026. 6 R-2A activities decompose the request, 1 new and 1 restarted this cycle. General Atomics is the largest named R-3 performer at $19.7M, 16% of the project's FY2027 R-3 total.

FY2027 Request
$125.2M
▲ 337% vs FY2026
FY2026 Enacted
$28.7M
▼ 65% vs FY2025
FY2025 Actual
$82.3M
Prior year
Project detail

What project SF100 buys

This project provides for the development, rapid prototyping, demonstration, and integration of current and maturing technologies for Special Operations-peculiar (SO-p) aviation and training requirements to transform the foundation of future SOF aviation for the Joint Force. Timely application of SO-p technology is critical and necessary to meet requirements in areas such as: Aviation Engineering Analysis (AEA); Electronic Warfare (EW)-Radio Frequency Countermeasures (RFCM); MH-47G and MH-60M SOF Common Terrain Following (TF)/Terrain Avoidance (TA) Silent Knight Radar (SKR); Precision Strike Package (PSP), Medium Altitude Long Endurance Tactical (MALET) MQ-9, and the Adaptive Airborne Enterprise (A2E). AEA provides engineering analysis, market research, and conceptual designs to mature critical technology priorities for crewed and uncrewed SOF airborne platforms, including but not limited to aircraft survivability, signature management, mission autonomy, reduced workload, advanced ISR capabilities, situational awareness, precision strike, resilient architectures, secure communications & networks, enhanced logistics, and next-generation mobility. The EW-RFCM supports development, integration, and test activities to provide EW capability against Radio Frequency (RF) threats for SO-p AC/MC-130J aircraft. MH-47G and MH-60M SOF Common TF/ TA SKR supports development, integration, and testing of SOF Common TF/TA Multi-Mode Radar (MMR) that provides Low Probability of Intercept (LPI) and Low Probability of Detection (LPD) capabilities for MH-47G and MH-60M aircraft. The PSP supports systems engineering, analysis, development, and enhancement of the baseline PSP for integration, installation, and test for the SOF AC-130J aircraft and other SOF aviation platforms. MQ-9 identifies, develops, rapidly prototypes, integrates, and tests Special Operations (SO)-peculiar mission kits, mission payloads, weapons, and modifications on MQ-9 Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), Ground Control Stations (GCSs), and training systems. MQ-9 funding also integrates A2E capabilities into this mission. The Adaptive Airborne Enterprise (A2E) is AFSOC’s modernization effort to enhance Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance (ISR), Electronic Warfare (EW), and precision strike capabilities.

R-3 lines of work
  • Product Development
  • Support
  • Test and Evaluation
  • Management Services
Funding trajectory

Project SF100 funding, FY2025–FY2031

Prior years are actuals, the budget year is the request, and the outyears are the FYDP plan. Estimate types are colored and never summed into one figure. Projects carry the full five-year plan; the activities inside them stop at the budget year.

255075100125082.3FY25ACTUAL28.7FY26ENACTED125.2FY27REQUEST104.2FY2887.4FY2985.9FY3086.1FY31
Actual Enacted Request Outyear (FYDP)
Fiscal YearEstimate TypeAmount ($M)
FY2025Actual82.3
FY2026Enacted28.7
FY2027Request125.2
FY2028Outyear104.2
FY2029Outyear87.4
FY2030Outyear85.9
FY2031Outyear86.1
Inside the project

6 accomplishments / planned programs

The R-2A exhibit — the only level of the budget that describes work that has not happened yet. Activities carry the prior, current and budget year only, no five-year plan. 3 of them describe FY2027 work in enough detail to have their own page; the rest are shown here in full. Coverage is partial across the corpus, so count activities, never total them.

FY2025 actual$46.0M
FY2026 enacted
FY2027 request$63.1M

Continues developing foundational open system Human Autonomy Common Control Architecture (HACCAr) for phase three delivery providing initial operational capability for a new human-machine interface (HMI) to enable simultaneous, multi-platform control. Continues integration efforts for A2E autonomy to enable small UAS (sUAS) behaviors…

Read the FY2027 plan →
FY2025 actual
FY2026 enacted
FY2027 request$29.5M

Initial development, testing, and integration of SO-p emerging technology mission kits, mission payloads, weapons and modifications onto the MQ-9 aircraft for UAS, GCSs, and training systems. Key efforts include enhancements to Operational Flight Program (OFP) Command and Control (C2) software development and Tactical situation…

Read the FY2027 plan →
FY2025 actual$14.2M
FY2026 enacted$5.8M
FY2027 request$11.7M

Continues development and integration of enhanced AESA Radar capabilities, includes hardware and software development.

Read the FY2027 plan →
(EW)-Radio Frequency Countermeasures (RFCM), Program Number 768▲ 4%
FY2025 actual$7.2M
FY2026 enacted$9.2M
FY2027 request$9.5M

FY2027 planned work Continues spiral design, development and test activities, to include: technical refresh of system hardware architecture to increase system capacity and software integration to updated hardware architecture.

FY2026 to FY2027 change Increase of $0.342 million for increased Spiral Development efforts.

FY2026 plans — current year Continue spiral design, development and test activities, to include: technical refresh of system hardware architecture to increase system capacity and software integration to updated hardware architecture.

FY2025 accomplishments Continue spiral design, development and test activities, to include: began technical refresh of system hardware architecture to increase system capacity, software integration to updated hardware architecture, and hardware integration testing.

Aviation Engineering Analysis (AEA)▼ 21%
FY2025 actual$12.7M
FY2026 enacted$11.4M
FY2027 request$9.0M

FY2027 planned work Continues to perform engineering analysis and evaluate capabilities for rapid transition onto Fixed Wing next generation ISR, mobility, and strike platforms. Activities include but are not limited to accelerating artificial intelligence-enabled flight and mission autonomy, advancing distributed targeting capabilities, maturing full-spectrum situational awareness, enhancing navigation and command/control systems, improving survivability via signature management and countermeasures, hastening contested logistics technologies, and designing SOF-peculiar mission payloads to meet operational outcomes in denied environments.

FY2026 to FY2027 change Decrease of $2.432 million due to reduction in planned engineering analysis activities in FY 2027.

FY2026 plans — current year Continue to perform engineering analysis and demonstrations to improve aviation mission survivability, aircraft and mission systems autonomy, sensor anatomy, sensor fusion, targeting enhancement, cyber hardening, navigation in denied environments, and data link enhancements to support Fixed Wing next generation ISR, Mobility and Strike platforms. Activities include: signature management; SA with full spectrum threat warning and countermeasures; and versatile mission equipment (payloads, communications and weapons) to improve SOF survivability in less than permissive operating environments. Other technology advancements for Fixed Wing platforms include improvements for increased range, speed…

FY2025 accomplishments Continue to perform engineering analysis and demonstrations to improve aviation mission survivability, aircraft and mission systems autonomy, sensor fusion, targeting enhancement, cyber hardening, navigation in denied environments, and data link enhancements to support Fixed Wing next generation ISR, Mobility and Strike platforms. Activities include: signature management; SA with full spectrum threat warning and countermeasures; and versatile mission equipment (payloads, communications and weapons) to improve SOF survivability in less than permissive operating environments. Other technology advancements for Fixed Wing platforms include improvements for increased range, speed with reduced…

MH-47/MH-60 SOF Common Terrain Following/Terrain Avoidance (TF/TA) Silent Knight Radar (SKR), Program Number 778▲ 4%
FY2025 actual$2.2M
FY2026 enacted$2.2M
FY2027 request$2.3M

FY2027 planned work Continues spiral design, development and test activities, to include: technical refresh of system hardware architecture to increase system capacity and software integration to updated hardware architecture.

FY2026 to FY2027 change Increase of $0.083 million supports increased SKR developmental test and evaluation costs.

FY2026 plans — current year Continue software spiral efforts to reduce TF/TA SKR signature, support data fusions initiatives, and increase reliability.

FY2025 accomplishments Continue software spiral efforts to reduce TF/TA SKR signature, support data fusions initiatives, and increase reliability.

Who's building it

Named performers on project SF100

Performers named in the R-3 exhibit under this project. Share is of the project's whole FY2027 R-3 total — the same denominator the program-element split uses, so the two read on one scale and will not sum to 100% when unnamed or government work is in the mix. Budget-justification contract funding, not obligations.

General Atomics
$19.7M · 16%
Gerneral Atomics Aeronautical Services
$9.9M · 7.9%
RTX / Raytheon
$1.4M · 1.1%