A US Drone Maker Tries to Take Back the Country’s Skies
Drones are getting smarter, deadlier and more indispensable. Skydio believes America should make its own.
A nighttime military demonstration of a Skydio drone.
Photographer: Philip Cheung for Bloomberg Businessweek
Late last October, two Ukrainian military officers flew to the US to visit the headquarters of Skydio Inc., a Silicon Valley manufacturer of quadcopter drones. Like the machine gun and the tank before them, drones are remaking battle, and since Russia’s 2022 invasion, Ukraine has become the world’s laboratory for drone warfare. Quadcopters bought for a few hundred dollars and loaded with explosives have been transformed into lethally efficient guided missiles. Ukrainian pilots wearing virtual-reality headsets steer them into combat, stalking and killing Russian infantrymen from above and destroying multimillion-dollar tanks and armored personnel carriers. The Russians have responded with drone units of their own. At this stage of the conflict, the weapons are responsible for the majority of the casualties on both sides.