USAF contract for 3D‑printed turbojets
A report says a startup secured a $30 million USAF contract to 3D‑print small turbojets intended for drones and long‑range weapons, marking a push for additive manufacturing in propulsion hardware. The coverage emphasized the contract value and the application to expendable or small‑class propulsion systems. (x.com)
A Colorado startup, Beehive Industries, has won a $29.7 million United States Air Force contract to keep developing small 3D-printed jet engines for drones and munitions. (beehive-industries.com) A turbojet is a compact engine that pulls in air, compresses it, mixes it with fuel, and pushes hot exhaust out the back for thrust. Beehive says additive manufacturing — building parts layer by layer in metal, like industrial-scale 3D printing — lets it make those engines faster and with fewer parts than conventional methods. (beehive-industries.com) The April 9 award funds vehicle integration, flight testing, and qualification work for the Frenzy 8, a 200-pound-thrust engine, and prototype fabrication for the smaller Frenzy 6, in the 100-pound-thrust class. Beehive said the contract also includes options for more Frenzy 6 integration work and a flight demonstration. (beehive-industries.com) The Air Force is buying these engines for what it calls small expendable turbine applications: aircraft and weapons that are meant to be cheap enough to lose in combat. Air & Space Forces Magazine reported the service wants “disposable” propulsion for drones and munitions as it tries to scale up lower-cost systems. (airandspaceforces.com) That demand has grown as the Pentagon shifts toward larger inventories of lower-cost uncrewed systems. A July 2025 Defense Department memo on military drone dominance said U.S. forces were not fielded with enough lethal small drones and called for faster procurement and production. (media.defense.gov) Beehive’s new award builds on a $12.46 million Air Force-backed contract announced on October 29, 2024, with the University of Dayton Research Institute and the Air Force Rapid Sustainment Office. That earlier deal covered development of a 200-pound-thrust small expendable turbine engine and delivery of 30 engines. (beehive-industries.com) By September 22, 2025, Beehive said it had completed tests on four Frenzy engines in six months under that earlier program. The company said the work moved the engine from first build to repeated test runs on a compressed schedule. (beehive-industries.com) Beehive says its larger 500-pound-thrust turbojet was assembled and tested in 13 months, and that the same manufacturing approach can support engines from 100 to 3,000 pounds of thrust. Aviation Week reported the Air Force contract is aimed at pushing that model down into low-cost engines for one-way drones and stand-off weapons. (beehive-industries.com; aviationweek.com) The contract does not mean these engines are in operational service yet. FlightGlobal reported the money is for testing, qualification, and prototype work, which are the steps before broader production decisions. (flightglobal.com) For the Air Force, the immediate target is not a fighter engine but a small, cheap powerplant that can be built in volume. For Beehive, the next proof point is whether Frenzy passes flight testing and qualification with the speed and cost the service is now paying to verify. (beehive-industries.com; flightglobal.com)
