MC-208 Guardian
MAG Aerospace, a leader in integration and turnkey ISR solutions, has brought its expertise to bear on the newly launched MC-208 Guardian. The multi-role aircraft – built on one of the world’s most widely-known and trained-on platforms, the Cessna C-208 – has been designed to reflect the complexities and realities of today’s battlefield.
The U.S.-built aircraft contains MAG-integrated sensors, communications, avionics, and weapons systems making it a true multi-role platform, capable of supporting a wide range of mission sets, including Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR), Air Mobility, CASEVAC/MEDEVAC, Armed Recce, Strike Coordination, and Precision Strike. Moreover, it is designed and built to operate with minimal support and tooling, boasts a historic availability rate of 98 percent, and very low cost per flight hour.
“In designing our MC-208 Guardian offering, we sought to create a multi-role aircraft that truly addresses the multitude of challenges that our U.S. and partner nation forces face in the field every day,” said Joe Fluet, MAG CEO. “From selecting a proven, rugged, and flexible platform with more than 20 million flight hours, to providing multiple communication channels and weapons configurations and certifications and ensuring quick reconfigurability, we designed this aircraft to solve the toughest problems and protect troops on the ground even in the most austere environments.”
Built on the fully certified Cessna 209 Caravan, the MC-208 Guardian is the reliable, cost-effective, solution able to meet the needs of the warfighter. With global support and mature training programs, the MC-208 Guardian is ready now. The U.S.-built MC-208 Guardian is agile, rugged, cost-effective, and can perform the most complex missions with the reliability of decades of successful austere airfield service.
MAG addresses the critical need for system integrity and weapons accuracy with a unique intelligence and surveillance configuration that enables the MC-208 Guardian to quickly transition from relaying targeting information and data on troop movement to a direct-action profile and putting kinetic rounds on target. The aircraft has four weapons-capable hard-points and, using laser designation for pinpoint target accuracy, the MC-208 Guardian can employ up to eight Hellfire missiles or as many as 28 APKWS laser-guided rockets. Hydra-70 Folding Fin Rockets can also be included in the weapons loadout to support suppressive fire to enable troop movement. Night vision-compliant instrumentation and a robust GPS solution mitigate any potential degradation of the Guardian’s intended missions and the MC-208 position, navigation, and timing (PNT) solution ensures flawless mission performance through any spectral environment.
In designing this aircraft, MAG considered the need to do more with less today. From ease of flight training and deployment to the aircraft’s small logistical footprint, low cost, and aircrew friendly operations, the MC-208 Guardian delivers unmatched military might for the size and cost of the platform.
Drawing from worldwide experience across a variety of environments, the MC-208 Guardian anticipates the unknown. With multiple diverse communication channels and frequencies, as well as beyond-line-of-sight global reach, the aircraft can transition from ISR, to air mobility, to precision strike, or strike coordination support for High Value Targets. Unlike many aircraft, the MC-208 also can be rapidly reconfigured as an air ambulance to evacuate wounded service members from the battlefield, reducing critical response time by eliminating the need for dedicated CASEVAC aircraft.
MAG’s MC-208 Guardian is SEEK EAGLE certified by the U.S. Air Force with U.S. military safe separation approvals. Variants of the MC-208 Guardians multi-role configurations have been delivered and utilized operationally worldwide under the DOD sponsored Building Partnership Capacity program. The aircraft is operationally proven in the ISR, Precision Strike, Armed Recce, Air Mobility and CASEVAC/MEDEVAC configurations. MAG holds multiple Supplemental Type Certificates (STC) from the FAA for the Guardian’s multi-role configurations, design upgrades, and added features essential for mission-critical austere operations.
“Our MC-208 Guardian aircraft are currently fielded across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, supporting the national security interests of the United States and foreign militaries. These aircraft conduct daily counterterrorism missions and serve other operational requirements that benefit the United States, including support for maritime and border security forces,” said Tim Wells, Senior Director of the MAG Aerospace Mission Integration Division (MID) facility in Titusville, Florida. “The versatility and durability this aircraft brings to our partner nation customers allows them to secure their own borders – making the MC-208 Guardian a true force support asset and force multiplier to their internal defense initiatives.”
On June 7, 2021 MAG Aerospace announced that its MC-208 Guardian multi-role aircraft had been selected as one of only 5 remaining competitors for the United States Special Operations Command’s (USSOCOM) new Armed Overwatch aircraft. The MC-208 Guardian boasts an impressive set of capabilities built on the well-established Cessna Caravan, offering the reliability of a pre-existing global supply chain and true multi-mission capability. The MC-208 Guardian is capable of performing aerial surveillance, close air support, casualty and medical evacuations, air mobility, and precision strike, all in one mission without the need to be reconfigured. The Guardian effectively eliminates the need to deploy and operate multiple aircraft types, conserving precious resources.
“Today’s warfighter is constantly being asked to do more with less and will continue to operate in budget constrained environments that demand resource prioritization. This was the problem we wanted the MC-208 Guardian to address,” said Joe Fluet, MAG Aerospace CEO. “We created an aircraft that is readily available with an open architecture specifically designed to minimize the strain on maintainer and pilot pipelines all while being affordable, versatile, and deployable.”
The MC-208 Guardian is a production-ready solution for the Armed Overwatch effort. It is a proven platform that excels in austere environments offering the flexibility required to perform multiple missions in a single sortie. The aircraft boasts a remarkable 98 percent availability rate, very low cost-per-flight-hour, robust communications, world leading ISR capabilities, fully integrated and proven weapons systems, endurance, mobility, and survivability.
With nearly 1,700 employees, MAG has flown nearly half a million hours operating more than 200 fixed wing, rotary wing, and unmanned aircraft system (UAS) aircraft across six continents in the most difficult and demanding flight conditions for the U.S. government, international organizations, commercial customers, and dozens of friendly foreign governments. For the MC-208 Guardian, MAG has teamed with best-in-class partners known for their innovation, expertise, and flawless execution, including Textron Aviation, Pratt & Whitney, and Garmin.
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