EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif.–A historic unmanned aerial system flight broke the endurance record for an independently battery-powered software designed 3D-printed group 1 drone using the power of Army-manufactured motors during Defense Contract Management Agency’s “Game of Drones” event here July 16.
The Army is not known for manufacturing components, but in a first of its kind demonstration, the Army Materiel Command’s drone motors proved its capabilities by setting a new endurance world record of 521 minutes and 43 seconds.
Army Capt. Lee Washburn, AMC military liaison for advanced manufacturing of small UAS, said the motors were one of the very first to come off the production line at the Tobyhanna Army Depot, Pennsylvania.
“AMC manufactured two 3115 sized brushless disc current (BLDC) motors to take part in ‘Game of Drones,’” Washburn said. “This capability to produce BLDC motors domestically, and within the Army’s Organic Industrial Base, is brand new as the ribbon cutting of the facility was only held on June 30, 2026.”
AMC’s goal is to manufacture sUAS components utilizing a clean supply chain that is decoupled from foreign dependencies and have components on DCMA’s https://bluelist.appsplatformportals.us/ that are available for the U.S. military and industry to procure.
Jon Strzelec, AMC advanced manufacturing lead for sUAS, said when the president signed the https://safe.menlosecurity.com/doc/docview/viewer/docN15B3010D6692bbc391ae804943b602ee2eb938489830a0140197c50ff861bbe1d089f0bd962f, Army Lt. Gen. Chris Mohan, AMC commanding general, looked to the Organic Industrial Base of 23 depots, arsenals and ammunition plants that are government-owned, to support the resident’s intent.
“AMC received funding invest in the OIB in an effort to bring manufacturing of critical sUAS components back into the United States,” Strzelec said. “Brushless direct current motors are just one of the components that AMC is leveraging the OIB to produce.”
AMC also produces drone frames at Rock Island Arsenal-Joint Manufacturing and Technology Center, Illinois; batteries at Red River Army Depot, Texas; and circuit cards along with the BLDC motors at Tobyhanna Army Depot.
“‘Game of Drones’ was proof that industry and the government can work together in creative ways to create exceptional results,” Strzelec said. “The event showcases exactly what the Army set out to do – provide opportunities for industry to partner with the Army and let the Army leverage the innovation and technical depth of industry. The event is proof that with collaboration between industry and the Army, we can achieve record-breaking results.”
AMC’s goal is to continue to participate in events that demonstrate their capabilities and help refine components for the warfighter based upon realistic testing.
Washburn said providing clean supply chain solutions in support of Drone Dominance is another critical goal. “AMC is proud to provide materiel solutions to support innovation across the uncrewed systems spectrum,” Washburn said. “As AMC’s production efforts across the OIB continues to expand into UAS chassis and bodies, battery solutions, circuit card assemblies, and injection molding of parts such as propellors, we will continue to work with DCMA in not only blue listing these components but also providing them to the Air Force Experimental Test Force for ‘Game of Drones’ events to innovate and break other performance and endurance records in support of Drone Dominance and our nation’s defense.”
The https://bluelist.appsplatformportals.us/ is an aggregated list of compliant unmanned systems and components for the Department of War. The Blue List was transferred to DCMA from the Defense Innovation Unit in 2025 and takes a holistic approach to continuously and rapidly vet commercial UAS technology for DOW.
The Blue List creates confidence in trusted components before they become part of larger systems, said Air Force Col. Dustin Thomas, DCMA Unmanned Systems Experimental commander.
“We must ensure that our wartime supply chains remain available. We cannot become dependent upon adversary-controlled manufacturing,” Thomas said. “To that end, we need components from trusted sources that will continue to exist during conflict.”
If an adversary can simply stop producing a critical component, that component was never truly trustworthy. The goal of the Blue List is to establish trust at the component level instead of repeatedly rebuilding and validating trust for every new platform.
“When it began, the Blue List was primarily focused on blue listing platforms, and later it began to blue list specific components. When DCMA took over the Blue List, we made a big push to shift to components,” Thomas said. “The reason to focus on components is that we can reduce our effort, manpower, and workload on drones that already have components that have gone through the Blue List process.”
This change in focus helps to ensure that we can continue fighting past day one, Thomas said.