REGENT Expands U.S. Marine Corps Seaglider Contract to $19.25 Million

REGENT Craft has extend­ed its col­lab­o­ra­tion with the U.S. Marine Corps Warfight­ing Lab adding $5 mil­lion in mis­sion fund­ing and bring­ing the total val­ue of the agree­ment to $19.25 mil­lion.

The new Phase IV agree­ment fol­lows com­ple­tion of Phase III, which includ­ed mul­ti­ple demon­stra­tions of REGENT’s full-scale Viceroy Seaglid­er pro­to­type, includ­ing flight test­ing. The lat­est phase includes six deliv­er­ables focused on eval­u­at­ing the Seaglid­er in oper­a­tional­ly rel­e­vant envi­ron­ments and advanc­ing com­mand-and-con­trolin­te­gra­tion.

The C2 work is intend­ed to exam­ine how Seaglid­ers could be tasked, tracked and coor­di­nat­ed with­in mil­i­tary oper­a­tions. The Phase IV pro­gramme will build on ear­li­er tech­ni­cal and pro­to­type demon­stra­tions as the Marine Corps eval­u­ates poten­tial appli­ca­tions for the tech­nol­o­gy.

REGENT’s agree­ment with MCWL has expand­ed in stages. The ini­tial Phase I/II con­tract was val­ued at $4.75 mil­lion and focused on estab­lish­ing the tech­ni­cal fea­si­bil­i­ty of the Seaglid­er con­cept. Phase III added $9.5 mil­lion and sup­port­ed devel­op­ment and test­ing of the full-scale pro­to­type.

The Viceroy is a high-speed, all-elec­tric Seaglid­er designed to oper­ate over water using a com­bi­na­tion of hydro­foils and wing-in-ground-effect flight. REGENT says the air­craft is designed to take off and land on water and oper­ate close to the sur­face, with a planned range of up to 180 miles and speeds of up to 180 mph.

For defence appli­ca­tions, the com­pa­ny is posi­tion­ing the Seaglid­er for logis­tics mis­sions involv­ing the move­ment of per­son­nel and equip­ment with­out rely­ing on con­ven­tion­al run­ways. Its elec­tric propul­sion sys­tem is designed to allow charg­ing from shore or ves­sels.

REGENT con­duct­ed a flight of its full-scale Viceroy pro­to­type in Nar­ra­gansett Bay, Rhode Island, on Sep­tem­ber 2, 2026, as part of its ongo­ing test cam­paign. The com­pa­ny is also test­ing its small­er Squire plat­form for dif­fer­ent mis­sion appli­ca­tions.

The lat­est Marine Corps phase will now move the pro­gramme towards demon­stra­tions in more oper­a­tional­ly rep­re­sen­ta­tive con­di­tions. The work will also exam­ine the inte­gra­tion of Seaglid­ers with mil­i­tary com­mand-and-con­trol sys­tems.

Thomas Sleightholm

Thomas is a con­tent writer for eVTOL Insights, cov­er­ing all aspects of the glob­al Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty ecosys­tem. Got a sto­ry for him? Please send an email to editorial@evtolinsights.com

See Full Bio