This week's sign of the apocalypse: an Army AH-64 Apache was apparently downed by a Shahed drone near the Strait of Hormuz, and the 2 crewmembers were saved by a maritime drone.

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In That Number

1 in 4

A new government report reveals that only about 1 in 4 F-35 stealth fighters were fully mission-capable last year. The key culprits: software flaws, spare parts shortages, and corrosion.

This downward trend in fleet readiness—particularly affecting Air Force F-35As—could cost the F-35 program $13.7B to resolve over the next 5 years.

On the Radar

Dassault

FCAS R.I.P. Germany and France have officially terminated the centerpiece 6th-gen fighter jet of the $116B Future Combat Air System (FCAS) program. The cancellation follows a total deadlock between Airbus and Dassault Aviation over project governance, intellectual property rights, and diverging national desirements. Other parts of FCAS (CCA drones, C2 network) will live on—for now.

  • The Merge’s Take: Germany has fallback options, from buying more F-35s to joining the rival 6th-gen UK-Italy-Japan GCAP coalition…to going it alone as a nation. Given France’s track record preference for sovereign capabilities, you can bet that Dassault—and a French coalition of companies—are sketching up their plan right now. That would make 3 European 6th-gen fighters on the drawing board or in development. If the U.S. Air Force’s F-47 doesn’t export, Europe could be positioned to grab international share from the 5th-gen F-35 in the 2040s (and they’ll need export sales to break even from development).

 

NewOrbit

Very LEO. NewOrbit raised an $18.5M Series A to scale Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) satellite manufacturing. The UK startup will use the capital to scale production to 100+ satellites annually ahead of the 2028 demo flight of its air-breathing ion-propulsion satellite, NEO-1.

  • The Merge's Take: VLEO is the space industry's next high-risk, high-reward land grab. Operating just 150-200 miles overhead, it’s half the distance as LEO—which means twice the closeness for sensing and comms…if you can stay in orbit. The aerodynamic drag and atomic oxygen corrosion routinely destroy standard hardware within weeks, so NewOrbit is engineering VLEO satellites for 5 years of operation (username checks). We wrote about VLEO back in 2024—check it out.

 

Swarm Aero

Swarm Engine. Swarm Aero selected Honeywell's TPE331 turboprop engine to power its new Group 5 multi-mission drone. The startup has raised $59M in funding to date and has an 80,000 sq ft facility in Arkansas (which is facing city drama right now).

  • The Merge’s Take: Beyond a handful of CGI images, the company has released few details about what this Group 5 drone is. That said, this is the same engine as the MQ-9; the graphics depict a wingspan and wing shape similar to those of the MQ-9; and the MQ-9 is a Group 5 multi-role drone that performs pretty much all the missions listed on Swarm Aero’s website. Is this an MQ-9 in a different wrapper with new software and start-up branding sprinkled on top?

 

Cirrus

Bad Cirrus. The Pentagon designated aircraft manufacturer Cirrus Aircraft as a Chinese military company, banning it from U.S. government contracts. Cirrus is the third-largest aircraft maker by volume and makes one of the most widely used general aviation aircraft in America.

  • The Merge’s Take: Though they only have 1 tiny federal contract that ends this year, this ban took way too long. Cirrus has been owned by AVIC (Aviation Industry Corporation of China) since 2011. This state-owned conglomerate produces nearly all of China’s military aircraft (J-10, J-20, J-35, KJ-500, KJ-2000, etc.). OBTW: the U.S. Air Force’s Initial Flight Training uses DA20 produced by Diamond Aircraft, which was acquired by China’s Wanfeng Aviation Industry in 2017. Good news: IFT is sunsetting in favor of a new program that will use non-Chinese aircraft.

TRIVIA

America’s 250th is right around the corner, but today is National Flag Day, so….pop quiz hotshot: which of these was the first official flag of the United States?

They Said It

Squishy Tech, The Tarawa Duck, Three Amigos, What the Heli, Winging It

— These are 5 of the 72 teams selected to compete in the first tranche of DARPA’s Lift Challenge.

The challenge: race a drone that weighs 55 pounds or less, carries at 110 pounds of weightlifting plates, and can complete a 5-nautical-mile course in under 30 minutes. The competition is next month, so expect to see videos of novel designs emerge!

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ANSWER
They all are. While the 13-star flag became official when Congress approved it in 1777, the language didn't specify the arrangement of the stars. Because of this glitch, there are actually over 30 known variations of the 13-star flag. As far as which one is “spangled,” that would be A; this is the star layout of the flag that Francis Scott Key saw in 1814 that inspired him to write a 4-stanza poem whose opening later became the U.S. national anthem. So we don’t get hate mail, the Star-Spangled Banner flag has 15 stars and 15 stripes (for Vermont and Kentucky), but the stars were arranged in the same manner.

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