About
Early Stage. Long Vision.
Slade Technologies is a founder-led aerospace and defense company building the hardware the industry skips: capable enough to trust, cheap enough to field. We're in the early stages and we say so plainly.
Mission
To build American defense hardware that lives in the middle. Capable enough to trust on its own, and cheap enough to field in real numbers, and to lose a few without losing the mission.
Vision
A principle that outlasts any one product. It applies to an aircraft today, and to a munition, a satellite, or a ground system tomorrow. Specter is where we start.
Company Background
Founded April 2026.
Slade Technologies was founded by Slade Uselton on a straightforward observation: the cost structures that define legacy defense programs are an organizational problem, not an engineering one.
The company is in active design on Specter, its first system, with a subscale composite model built and validated. Federal contracting registration is complete, SBIR research is underway, and government engagement has begun.
Values
What We Stand For
Cost Is a Requirement
Cost is set as a hard requirement on the first drawing, alongside range and payload, and it holds that status through the entire design. That discipline is what puts the middle within reach.
Startup Speed
Small team, fast decisions, no bureaucratic overhead. The goal is to move faster than the industry expects.
Domestic Manufacturing
Every system Slade builds will be manufactured in America. Supply chain, tooling, and manufacturing partners are all selected around that constraint.
Radical Transparency
We're early stage. We say that clearly here and everywhere else. What we publish reflects where we actually stand.
Roadmap
Development Path
Foundation
Company formation, federal contracting registration (SAM.gov, CAGE), IP development, collaborator agreements, early government engagement initiated.
Design
Specter systems design underway. Subscale composite model built and validated, proving the manufacturing process we scale up from. SBIR research and government solicitation outreach ongoing.
Prototype
First hardware development. Aerodynamic validation, propulsion selection, and flight test program.
Delivery
Government and commercial program execution. A leaner, faster alternative to legacy contractor delivery.