- Cummings Aerospace fired two 3D-printed Hellhound S3 jet drones from a buggy-mounted launcher, a first for the weapon
- One operator sent both drones on separate autonomous missions using a single handheld fire control system
- The new launcher holds up to eight drones, and Cummings plans to fire it next from unmanned ground and naval vehicles
A small American defense firm has just shown what mass-produced, 3D-printed air power could look like in the field, and it fits on the back of a utility vehicle.
Cummings Aerospace has fired two of its 3D-printed Hellhound S3 jet-powered drones from a launcher mounted on a Polaris buggy, with a single operator using one handheld controller to send both drones off on separate autonomous missions.
The company says the test met all its objectives and marks several firsts for the turbojet weapon.
Moving drones from a bagpack to a buggy?
The demonstration took place on August 25, 2026, at the Pendleton UAS Range in Oregon, where a firm engineer fired the two Hellhounds one after the other. Both carried inert payloads and flew different preplanned routes at different speeds; the results were announced on October 12 2026.
Until now, the Hellhound had flown only in its man-portable form in more than a dozen flight tests. This was the first time it had been fired from a vehicle, the first use of a new launcher that can hold up to eight drones, the first ripple-fire of the S3, and the first time a single operator controlled more than one Hellhound at once.
Before launch, the operator programmed each drone's waypoints, altitudes, and flight path into the handheld fire control system. Once airborne, the drones flew those routes on their own while streaming data back, so the operator could watch both flights live and redirect or abort either mission.
The play here is about doing more with fewer people: CEO Sheila Cummings put it, instead of manually flying a single drone to a target, one soldier using one fire control system can simultaneously put multiple Hellhounds on multiple targets.
The Hellhound S3 is roughly the size of a baseball bat and weighs about 13 pounds. Its turbojet engine lets it fly more than 60 km (37 miles) at speeds up to 618 km/h (384 mph), putting it in a different class from the propeller-driven quadcopters and loitering munitions that have come to define the war in Ukraine.
It is also much easier to build, leveraging 3D-printed and commercial off-the-shelf components that allow for easy modifications, repairs, and mass production if needed. Cummings Aerospace frames the Hellhound as a multi-mission weapon rather than a single-trick munition. It can work as a loitering munition, a precision-guided munition, a one-way attack drone, or a counter-drone interceptor.
Operators can swap between four mission modules, covering armor-piercing, blast-fragmentation, electronic warfare, and decoy roles, in under two minutes without tools.
The company has previously said the turbojet's documented top speed lets it chase and destroy smaller Group 2 and 3 drones, giving it a hunter-killer role against other UAVs.
That counter-drone angle is arguably the most important here because the threat it is built to answer keeps getting smarter and cheaper; A recent report on a NATO-backed drone AI that picked its own target and struck it, and the US Army showing off its in-house "Dragoons" drone fitted with 3D-printed bombs are merely the tip of the iceberg. Cheap, printable airframes are becoming the common currency of modern conflict, on both the giving and receiving ends.
Much of the appeal of the Hellhound S3 as a viable counter lies in its manufacturing process. The Hellhound is built largely with commercially available 3D printers in-house, which is central to Cummings' goal of producing at least 100 S3 airframes a month and her stated interest in licensing the design to US and international partners for distributed production.
In an era where drone tariffs and supply chains have become a strategic concern, a weapon you can print close to the front is as much a logistics argument as a battlefield one, and one can assume that the Hellhound S3 is but the first of many that will eventually make it to the modern battlefield in different shapes, sizes, and capabilities.