Flyer 60 ALSV for ITV Requirement

Flyer Defense established a manufacturing partnership with General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems to market and mass produce the Flyer family of lightweight, tactical wheeled vehicles. Prior to this association, Flyer Defense hand built limited quantities of earlier generation vehicles, which were used to refine the vehicle’s design and provide prototypes for customer evaluation.

Combat experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan highlighted challenges with the aging HMMWV (“Humvee”) platform; namely, the vehicle could not be internally transported via the MV-22 Osprey in particular, and if up-armored to offer passenger protection from small arms fire and more critically, increasingly sophisticated and dangerous Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), lost much of its mobility and potential off-road performance.

Both the Marines and special operations community saw the potential utility for a lightweight vehicle which could be readily transported by key tilt-wing and rotary wing aircraft for rapid insertion and extraction, which could provide both mobility and firepower to lightly armed troops. While potentially still vulnerable to small arms fire and IEDs, the tradeoff would be the ability to operate in difficult terrain where implanting IEDs is either very difficult or impractical, and to rely on speed and mobility rather than armor protection to help keep troops safe.

The ITV Requirement was generated to provide elite warfighters with a suitable light strike platform that could “get in and get out” as efficiently as possible.