DARPA cancels Liberty Lifter heavy ground-effect vehicle program

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has reportedly cancelled the “Liberty Lifter” heavy cargo seaplane program. 

The cancellation was first reported by Aviation Week on July 7, 2025. While no official press release has been issued, a note on DARPA’s website refers to the completion of the program in the following terms: 

“In June 2025, DARPA completed its work on Liberty Lifter. After restructuring the program to focus on areas of highest technical risk, the program’s simulation success and materials testing proved the viability of the Liberty Lifter concept.”  

In February 2023, DARPA selected General Atomics and Boeing subsidiary Aurora Flight Sciences to develop a large amphibious aircraft that would use the ground-effect principle to move heavy cargo at high speeds and low altitude over water. The project specifications called for an aircraft capable of carrying payloads of up to 100 tons (similar to those of a C-17 Globemaster III aircraft), 6,500 nautical miles of range (12,000 kilometers), and the ability to fly as low as 100ft (30 meters) over water. 

In May 2024, DARPA assigned an additional US$8.3 million to Aurora Flight Sciences to continue work on the project alone. 

The original project outline envisaged that a prototype would be flown at some point in 2027 or 2028, but a prototype will now not be built. However, this will not happen in the end, since no prototype will be built.  

Nevertheless, DARPA has underlined that valuable insights have been derived from the Liberty Lifter program and that it aims to continue working with industry partners to apply this information to other platforms. 

This announcement comes at a time when it has been learned that China is working on its own amphibious ground-effect vehicle. 

In early July 2025, some blurry pictures emerged of a test site in the Bohai Sea, a gulf in the northern Yellow Sea showing what could possibly be sea trials of a new Chinese amphibious aircraft. 

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