State leaders have long wanted to lure more defense-related companies to North Carolina and now they’re getting a couple of new ones.
One is Ukrainian drone manufacturer Skyeton. The other is an Australian company named Silentium Defence that makes a type of stealth radar.
The war in Ukraine has given that country’s defense sector significant expertise in making drones. Lately, companies like Skyeton have been capitalizing on that by marketing their products internationally. It will adapt an existing building once used by Black & Decker near Fayetteville Regional Airport for its first U.S. manufacturing operation. It’s expected to eventually employ more than 160 people making an annual average salary of nearly $71,000, which is more than $20,000 higher than the average for Cumberland County.
The company will initially build a drone called the Raybird that’s used for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions. It’s about six feet long, has a wingspan of just under 10 feet and can stay aloft for more than a day a time.
In a statement released by the state, the company’s U.S. CEO, Rigoberto Sáez, alluded to the site’s proximity to Fort Bragg, the nation’s large military base by population.
“Expanding our manufacturing footprint in North Carolina is about more than opening a new facility. It’s about strengthening America’s defense industrial base, creating high-quality American jobs, and delivering combat-proven capabilities closer to the warfighters we exist to serve,” he said.
Silentium, meanwhile, has announced that its small U.S. headquarters in Apex will have its opening ceremony Tuesday. It could eventually employ more than two dozen people there.
That company makes an unusual type of radar that’s hard to detect in operation because it doesn’t emit signals of its own. Instead, it uses radio waves already in the air from, say, television and radio transmitters or cell towers, and analyzes how they reflect off its targets.
This kind of radar can be portable for use by troops in the field, and has several military applications, including helping to track and counter drones.
