Co-founder & CSO at @general__cherry | Top1 Drone UA Maker
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in London for DroneX
come find our stand. DMs open for any proposals 🍒
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150 rounds and a fighter sortie per interception
That's the honest cost of putting an F-16 on drone duty ► the fix isn't fewer jets, it's making the cheap layer fast enough to take the job back 🍒
🇺🇦 Ukraine is looking to source tens of thousands of 20mm shells to counter increasingly deadly Russian jet-powered drones, - Bloomberg
The ammunition, which can be fired from an F-16 fighter jet’s cannon, is the most cost-effective and immediate solution to intercepting the drones, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private matters.
About 150 shells are needed per interception, which amounts to roughly 10,000 a day. Kyiv is in talks with several European countries and manufacturers to obtain munitions, the people said.
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THE KNOWLEDGE PROBLEM
...here's the test I use now
If your best engineer takes a two-week vacation, does production slow down?
If yes, you don't have a factory
You have a very expensive workshop with one irreplaceable person in it
The real job of scaling is moving knowledge out of heads and into process
Instructions a new person can follow on day one
Checks that catch the mistake before it leaves the building
Designs that are easy to assemble, not just easy to admire 🍒
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Eric Schmidt says the pace of innovation he's watching in Ukraine is faster than anything he's seen, and he works in tech
He's right. But another point from that interview matters more ► the side that takes new technology to scale fastest is the side that wins
Speed and scale are two different problems. Most people only talk about the first one
Speed is how fast you fix what broke. For us it's a month - a user reports a problem, and when we take it, it's in the product within thirty days
Scale is how many of those fixes ship next week
He also asked why more countries aren't learning from this
Some already are. This summer we signed with a hundred-year-old Finnish manufacturer to produce in Finland
That's not exporting hardware ► it's exporting the loop 🍒
...btw, full interview in the reply below
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Most hardware companies ship a product and then defend it for five years
We change ours every month
A user tells us something broke or something's missing. If we take it, it's in the product within thirty days. No release cycle, no block upgrade, no committee
That's not a process we invented. It's what happens when the engineers are close enough to the people using the thing that nobody needs a meeting 🍒
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Detection is where most of the argument about interception actually lives
You can have the fastest interceptor on earth. If you find out forty seconds late, it's a spectator 🍒
See without being seen.
At Northern Strike, Anduril deployed two passive air defense systems: Wisp and the Long-Range Camera Tower. Both detected small drones, large aircraft, and surface vessels from a distance. No signals emitted.
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Two years ago Ukraine had no interceptor category at all
Now they're being codified fast enough that you lose track ► that's what it looks like when a defense industry runs at software speed 🍒
🇺🇦 Ukraine has codified the Skazheny interceptor drone with terminal guidance for military service. The system is designed to intercept reconnaissance and strike drones, with a top speed of 340 km/h.
militarnyi.com/en/news/ukrai…
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Response time is the whole metric now
Doesn’t matter if you’re protecting a motorcade or a substation - the question is how many seconds pass before something is overhead 🍒
BREAKING: The U.S. Secret Service is now deploying drones as first responders, enabling rapid drone response to security incidents and greater situational awareness.
@SkydioHQ, the American drone company, is supplying the drones and autonomous docking systems.
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Good to see this framing land in a Pentagon program
Modular, foldable, field-repairable - that list wasn’t written in a lab. Every item on it is a complaint somebody made after a bad week 🍒
U.S. company Powerus has unveiled the Matrix Fold, a modular and foldable FPV drone reportedly selected for the Pentagon’s Drone Dominance program.
The 12-inch platform is designed to fold into a compact form that can reportedly fit into a backpack and be deployed within seconds. Its 3D-printed construction is intended to allow individual components to be replaced in the field, with printing files reportedly supplied for manufacturing replacement parts.
According to Powerus, the Matrix Fold has a maximum speed of 242 km/h, a payload capacity of up to 6.8 kg and an endurance of up to 35 minutes.
The system features a modular architecture compatible with the company’s Matrix 5, 7, 10 and F platforms. Tool-free maintenance and rapid payload changes are also reportedly supported.
Powerus states that the Matrix Fold is NDAA-compliant and Blue UAS certified, with its supply chain under company control.
In May 2026, the Matrix Fold was reportedly selected for the second phase of the Pentagon’s Drone Dominance program, described as having a value of approximately $1 billion. The program is intended to support the procurement of tens of thousands of low-cost, expendable drones and expand U.S. domestic production capacity.
Serial production is reportedly planned to follow the program’s next phase.
#USA #Powerus #MatrixFold #FPV #FPVDrone #DroneDominance #Pentagon #UAV #DroneWarfare #3DPrinting #BlueUAS #NDAA
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Fair question, and the honest answer is that both are true
Drills are for the twenty percent of a trench you have to actually enter. The grenades handle the other eighty 🍒
You see a lot of training footage from both Ukraine and NATO of trench clearing drills, but then you see actual combat footage and it's just throwing grenades at anything that even might have an enemy soldier in it. What's the point of the drills if that's not how it works?
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Two years ago every launch was “further, heavier, faster”
Now it’s a five-inch frame for forests and buildings. Specialization is what a market looks like when it stops being a race 🍒
"Ukrainian defence company F-Drones has unveiled a new compact F5 strike drone. The drone has been developed for close-range strikes at distances of up to 13 km.
The FPV drone has a five-inch carbon frame and is designed for assault units.
"It is useful for short distances and challenging environments: forested areas, urban areas, and supporting positions and assault groups. Its principle is simple: quick set up and a quick hit," the company explained.
The F5 can carry a payload of up to 1 kg, and the manufacturer supplies the drones in two variants: one with a jam-resistant radio link and another with a fibre-optic control link that is immune to electronic warfare.
F-Drones said that in the fibre-optic configuration, the FPV drone can fly about 6 km, while the radio version has a stated tactical range of up to 13 km."
pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/…
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Patria has been making defense hardware since 1921
We’ve been making it since the sirens started. Turns out those two things go together better than anyone expected 🍒
🇺🇦🇫🇮 The Finnish Patria and Ukrainian General Cherry have signed a letter of intent for the joint production of drones in Finland.
militarnyi.com/uk/news/patri…
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Three years ago Ukraine was the country that received things
This week we signed a memorandum of intent with Patria to build our drones in Finland. Over a century in defense manufacturing, half of Nammo in their portfolio, land, naval and air systems across Europe
They have the industrial base. We have the loop - a problem reported from the front, a revised airframe within a month
Finland and Ukraine border the same aggressor. Nobody in that room needed the urgency explained twice
Thank you to President Zelensky for backing localization of Ukrainian production abroad 🍒
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big news: Wilcox Cherry Defense just passed the Qualifier round of the Pentagon's Drone Dominance Program
49 companies came to Camp Grayling, Michigan, for two weeks of day and night testing - Long Range Strike, Tactical Assault in Confined Environments. 19 made it through
we were one of them
this is the joint venture bringing @generalcherry combat-proven technology to the US market - and it just got tested by the same standards as everyone else. Just drones doing what they're built to do
drone born on the front line in Ukraine, now proving itself under US Army rules 🍒
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