News & Insights

September 21, 2026

Drone as a Service for Military Exercises: What Red Air Operations Actually Provides

Most units training against the UAS threat do so against a notional threat, a demonstration system, or a contractor-operated platform that bears little resemblance to what they will face in a contested environment.

The result is predictable: units qualify against a system that does not replicate adversary behavior, do not develop the detection and defeat muscle memory that real operational tempo builds, and arrive at an actual adversary UAS encounter with training that did not prepare them for it.

September 18, 2026

What Organic Personal Security Capability Actually Looks Like at the Unit Level

There is a pattern in how DoD units approach skills that matter but are not directly tied to the primary mission: they contract it. Someone comes in, delivers a training event, and leaves. The unit has certificates. The unit does not have capability.

Personal digital security is in that pattern right now. Most units that care about it bring in a contractor for an annual security awareness event. Operators get a briefing. They might get a checklist. The contractor leaves. Six months later, the threat environment has changed, new personnel have rotated in, and the unit’s actual security posture is roughly what it was before the contractor arrived, because the knowledge left with the contractor.

September 10, 2026

The Digital Signature Problem Every Deployed Unit Has and Nobody Is Training For

Annual OPSEC training teaches operators that threats exist. It does not teach them to do anything about those threats that they weren’t already doing. The gap between awareness and capability is where real exposure lives.

Every operator who deploys or travels to a threat environment carries a personal device that has spent years accumulating data about their habits, location history, contacts, and identity. That device is not neutral. It broadcasts, syncs, and logs in ways that are invisible to the person carrying it and valuable to an adversary with basic collection capability. A one-hour annual briefing does not change any of those behaviors.

September 5, 2026

Three Categories of Personal Threat That Live Outside the SCIF

Inside a classified facility, information security is structured, enforced, and regularly audited. Cleared personnel know what the rules are, why they exist, and what the consequences of violating them look like.

Outside that facility, most of the same personnel operate with no structured framework at all. They carry personal devices that have spent years accumulating sensitive data. They use consumer applications built for ad revenue, not security. Their personal networks, location patterns, and identity information are indexed in commercial databases accessible to anyone willing to pay for them.

August 20, 2026

Procurement as a Service and Manufacturing as a Service: How Forge Flex Solves the NDAA Component and Fabrication Problem

One retainer contract covering NDAA-compliant component procurement, aircraft fabrication, and engineering support. No separate vendors. No multi-contract management. No acquisition cycle for each component order.

June 24, 2026

Forge & Flight Federal Services Division Is Hiring Cleared Professionals at Fort Bragg and Distributed Federal Installations

Forge & Flight’s Federal Services Division is expanding and actively hiring cleared professionals across Fort Bragg and distributed federal installations nationwide. The division operates professional services contracts staffed with W-2 employees, U.S. citizens with active Secret clearances or eligibility.

June 17, 2026

Forge & Flight Academy Is Hiring Instructors. Here Is What the Five-Pillar Framework Actually Means

Forge & Flight Academy is expanding its instructor cadre and is actively hiring for two pillar roles. The five-pillar capability framework defines how the Academy approaches applied technical instruction, students leave demonstrating capability, not completing hours.

June 10, 2026

Why We Build on ArduPilot, GNU Radio, and OpenFOAM. And Why That Makes Us More Trustworthy, Not Less

The UAS industry has a pattern: take open-source foundations, close the architecture, attach a support contract, and charge premium pricing for dependency. Forge & Flight runs in the opposite direction, and that choice is not accidental. It is a position about what the warfighter actually deserves.

June 3, 2026

NDAA Prohibited Vendor Restrictions Are Tightening. Here Is What Procurement Officers Need to Verify Before the Next Platform Buy.

The NDAA’s prohibited vendor and domestic manufacturing requirements for UAS have expanded incrementally across multiple authorization cycles. The result is a compliance framework that requires affirmative verification, not just a cleared-list check. Here is what procurement officers need to confirm before a platform buy.

May 27, 2026

Forge & Flight Achieves First Flight of High-Speed Research Platform

Forge & Flight Holdings announces successful first flight of a company-funded high-speed research platform on May 11, 2026. The program, targeting Mach 1.4 performance, represents the company’s investment in advanced propulsion and airframe research conducted entirely with internal resources.

May 20, 2026

What Actionable OSINT Looks Like for Defense Contractors and Corporate Security Teams

Most commercial OSINT products deliver data volume without analytical value. What defense contractors and corporate security teams actually need is finished intelligence, assessed, sourced, and decision-ready. Here is what that looks like.

May 13, 2026

CMMC Level 2 for Small UAS Manufacturers: How We Achieved a Perfect SPRS 110/110 Score

Achieving a perfect SPRS 110/110 against NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 2 as a small defense manufacturer is not common, but it is achievable with the right approach. Here is what it took and why it matters for DoD contract eligibility.

May 13, 2026

NDAA Section 848 UAS Compliance: What Defense Procurement Officers Need to Know in 2026

NDAA Section 848 imposes strict requirements on UAS procurement across the DoD. This guide covers exactly what procurement officers should require from vendors, component documentation, BOM traceability, and how to verify compliance before award.

May 13, 2026

Why Fort Bragg Proximity Is a Defense Contractor Strategy, Not a Coincidence

Forge & Flight Holdings is headquartered in Fayetteville, NC, adjacent to Fort Bragg, deliberately. The MICC-Fort Bragg ecosystem awards hundreds of millions annually in small business contracts. Here is what the opportunity looks like from the inside.

May 9, 2026

Forge & Flight Partners with STEM Warriors for Free Youth Drone Camp in Fayetteville

Forge & Flight is supporting The Project Initiative Foundation’s STEM Warriors Academy Drone Camp, a free, five-day hands-on UAS program for Fayetteville youth ages 6 through 13. Morning and afternoon sessions are available May 26-30. Registration and sponsorship information at project-initiative.org/events.

May 6, 2026

The Blue UAS Cleared List Has a Structural Problem. Procurement Officers Need to Know About It.

The Blue UAS Cleared List is widely trusted by procurement officers as proof of NDAA compliance. The architecture of the certification process, documented supply chain failures, and a structural conflict of interest in its assessment framework mean that trust needs to be informed, not automatic.

April 28, 2026

SOCOM Is Cutting Manned Aircraft to Buy Small Drones. What That Shift Actually Means.

SOCOM’s FY2027 request cuts the OA-1K buy and redirects dollars toward 100+ small unmanned systems paired with MQ-9 motherships. The shift is a formal budget expression of lessons special operations forces have already learned operationally, and it has direct implications for the companies and trainers positioned to meet that demand.

April 15, 2026

The Counter-UAS Marketplace Is Open. The 82nd Airborne Is Already Buying.

JIATF-401’s C-UAS Marketplace is buying, and the 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg is already field-testing systems it funded. The new procurement vehicle changes how units access counter-drone capability, and what that means for vendors and operators in the defense UAS ecosystem.

April 5, 2026

Why Small Defense Manufacturers Are Winning Contracts That Primes Can't Fill

A structural shift in defense acquisition, driven by OTA authority, SBIR expansion, NDAA supply chain requirements, and the failure of large primes to deliver on certain categories of advanced technology, is opening contract space that small manufacturers are filling and large primes are not.

April 1, 2026

What Is the Blue UAS Program. And What Does It Mean for Procurement?

The Defense Innovation Unit’s Blue UAS program is the fastest path to a DoD-cleared small UAS acquisition. Here’s what it means, who qualifies, and what procurement officers need to understand before engaging the market.

March 24, 2026

BVLOS Is Coming: What FAA Part 108 Means for State and Federal UAS Programs

FAA Part 108 BVLOS rulemaking is in final stages. When it drops, the operational envelope for compliant UAS programs expands significantly, but only for programs with the right platforms and operator certification in place. Now is the time to understand what changes.

March 19, 2026

Target Fixation: The Decision-Making Failure That Costs Agencies Millions

The same decision-making failure mode that kills Special Operations missions is operating in government UAS procurement, and the cost is measured in warehouses full of expensive equipment that nobody is flying.

March 5, 2026

Why You Should Evaluate UAS Platforms Like a Special Operations Mission

The rehearsal discipline that prevents operational failure in Special Operations is directly applicable to UAS platform evaluation, and most procurement processes skip it entirely.

February 18, 2026

The Category That Doesn't Exist Yet. And Why Agencies Are Waiting for It

The NDAA drone ban exposed a structural gap in the domestic UAS market. Agencies aren’t waiting because they’re slow, they’re waiting because none of the existing categories fully serves the requirement.