US Air Forces Central has ordered Skydio Dock and X10 drone systems worth more than $9 million to guard American air bases in the Middle East, Skydio said on 8 April 2026. The Air Force has not announced the order. Skydio gave no quantity, base names or contract vehicle.
Skydio called it “one of the largest autonomous drone infrastructure deployments” for international base security by the Air Force. It said it was the first use of its docks at scale for force protection overseas.
The Dock is a box that launches a drone on its own when a sensor raises an alert. Skydio says an X10 leaves the box in under 20 seconds and sends high-definition and thermal video to the base defence operations centre. The X10 carries a 64-megapixel camera, a 48-megapixel telephoto and a FLIR Boson+ thermal camera, and flies for up to 40 minutes in lab conditions, by Skydio’s figures.
The order came as Iranian drones and missiles hit US forces across the region. On 1 March a drone strike killed six US soldiers at a tactical operations centre in Port Shuaiba, a Kuwaiti port, the Associated Press reported. On 27 March an E-3 Sentry radar aircraft was among those damaged at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, Air & Space Forces Magazine reported.
The Pentagon’s list of drones cleared for military buyers carries the X10D, the X10 and the R10, but not the Dock. Skydio said in July that the Dock for X10 had been cleared, but the DCMA list read on 15 October does not show it. The list clears aircraft, not their stations.
Skydio has not announced deliveries or a follow-on from Air Forces Central since April. In May it said the Air Force’s bomb-disposal teams had placed a follow-on order for X10D drones that “more than doubles” their November 2025 order, without a figure.
