Program of Record for the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps
Expeditionary, payload flexible and the most versatile UAS in its class.
Modularity
Supports wide range of missions including electronic warfare, ISR, and communications relay
Flexibility
Runway-independent design easily operates from land or at sea
Persistence
Range and endurance enable persistent detection, classification, and tracking
Get the full specs and details.
Specifications

Size and Weight
- Length: 8.2 ft / 2.5 m
- Wingspan: 15.7 ft / 4.8 m
- Max takeoff weight: 135 lb / 61 kg
- Max payload weight*: 39 lb / 17.7 kg
*Reduces endurance
Standard Payload Configuration
- Electro-optic imager: -1.1°–25° optical field of view; 4x digital zoom
- Mid-wave infrared imager: -2°–25° field of view
- Laser rangefinder
- IR marker
- Communications relay and AIS
Performance
- Endurance: Up to 16 hours
- Ceiling: up to 20,000 ft / 6,096 m
- Max horizontal speed: 90+ knots / 46.3 m/s
- Cruise speed: 60 knots
- Engine: 8 HP reciprocating engine with EFI; JP-5, JP-8
Program Status
17,000+ – flight hours
14 – deployments completed
8 – maritime MEU deployments
6 – land-based deployments
31 – systems delivered to USN and USMC
4 – international customers via NAVAIR FMS program

U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Adam Dublinske
Flexibility
The RQ-21A Blackjack was developed in partnership with the U.S. Department of the Navy to fill the requirement for a small tactical unmanned aircraft system capable of operating from land and sea.
Communication
Encrypted command and control datalink enables a line-of-sight operating radius beyond 50 nm / 92.6 km, with electromagnetic shielding to support customized communications and radio frequency sensor payloads.
Mobility
The system is transportable via ship, cargo aircraft (V-22, C-130 or larger), cargo helicopters (CH-47, CH-53) and vehicles such as HMMWVs or JLTVs.
Customizable Payload Suite
Blackjack’s open payload architecture can be customized with imagers, communication systems, electronic warfare payloads, signals intelligence capabilities and other tools to give the warfighter a look ahead in operational environments.
Interoperability
Compliant with relevant NATO and industry standards to allow interoperability across joint, coalition, and allied forces.
Proven Experience
Our systems are backed by more than 1.3 million operational hours and deployed worldwide with international defense, government and commercial customers with the most demanding mission requirements.
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Related Systems
RQ-21A works with many Insitu systems.




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