Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to AeroVironment's 3rd Quarter Fiscal Year 2021 Earnings Call. This is Steven Gitlin, Chief Marketing Officer and Vice President of Investor Relations for AeroVironment. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. We will conduct a question and answer session after management's remarks. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded for replay purposes.
Before we begin, please note that on this call, certain information presented contains forward looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward looking statements include, without limitation, any statement that may predict, forecast, indicate or imply future results, performance or achievements and may contain words such as believe, anticipate, expect, estimate, intend, project, plan or words or phrases with similar meaning. Forward looking statements are based on current expectations, forecasts and assumptions that involve risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, economic, competitive, governmental and technological factors outside of our control that may cause our business strategy or actual results to differ materially from the forward looking statements. For further information on these risks, we encourage you to review the risk factors discussed in AeroVironment's periodic reports on Form 10 ks and Form 10 Q filed with the SEC and the Form 8 ks filed today with the SEC, along with the associated earnings release and the Safe Harbor statement contained therein. This afternoon, we also filed a slide presentation with our earnings release and posted the presentation on our website at avinc.com in the Events and Presentations section.
The content of this conference call contains time sensitive information that is accurate only as of today, March 9, 2021. The company undertakes no obligation to make any revision to any forward looking statements contained in our remarks today or to update them to reflect the events or circumstances occurring after this conference call. Joining me today from AeroVironment are President and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Wahid Nawabi and Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Kevin McDonnell.
We will now begin with remarks from Wahid Nawabi. Wahid?
Thank you, Steve. Welcome to our Q3 fiscal year 2021 earnings conference call. On today's call, I will emphasize 3 key messages included on Slide number 3 of our earnings presentation. First, our team continues to deliver strong results despite the continued challenges presented by the COVID-nineteen pandemic. 2nd, we're on track to achieve our fiscal year 2021 objectives, while delivering our 4th consecutive year of profitable double digit top line growth.
And third, we're successfully executing our long term growth strategy through our recent transformative acquisitions that will accelerate our success over the near and long term. Now let's review our financial performance in the quarter, which is outlined on slide number 4 of our earnings presentation. We delivered 3rd quarter revenue of $78,800,000 an increase of 27% year over year and consistent with our expectations. Earnings per diluted share of $0.01 increased from a loss of $0.04 in the prior year, primarily due to an increase in revenue and product margin. Non GAAP earnings per diluted share for the 3rd quarter was 0 point 14 dollars an increase of $0.15 as compared to the prior year.
Our team continued to build on our positive momentum, supporting our U. S. And more than 50 Allied customers and simultaneously executing on transformative acquisitions. While the pandemic continued to shift some orders due mainly to travel restrictions, we're still delivering on our commitments and working toward a 4th consecutive year of profitable growth. During and shortly after the end of our Q3, we announced 3 acquisitions that we're confident will significantly strengthen our company and extend AeroVironment's track record of operational and financial success.
With the acquisition of TelerOp, we're expanding our portfolio of solutions with a leading family of unmanned ground vehicles. Based in Germany, Telerab has been in business for almost 3 decades and serves defense and public safety customers in 45 countries. We see significant opportunities across our customer base for cross selling and await a decision from the U. S. Air Force on the large EOD robotics program, which we recently bid as a prime contractor.
We expect to close the Telerav acquisition and learn the result of the Air Force competition by the end of our fiscal year 2021. Next, our acquisition of Arcturus UAV, which closed on February 19 provides us with class leading medium UAS that can fly longer and further while carrying significantly larger payloads as compared to our small UAS. We now refer to Puma LE, Jump 20 and T20 as our medium UAS or MUAS solutions, providing endurance ranging from 6.5 hours to 24 hours. Our MUAS team continues to deliver intelligence as a service on the U. S.
SOCOM ME UAS 4 program. In addition, Jump 20 is well positioned for the U. S. Army's Future Tactical UAS Program or FTUAS, a multiyear opportunity for the replacement of the Army's legacy Group 3 solution. We participated in a competitive FTUAS demonstration last week, providing the Army with a better understanding of the Jump 20's capabilities and suitability for this program.
Our system performed extremely well in this demonstration, which should improve our competitive position for this program. Last on February 24, we announced our acquisition of Progyny Systems Corporation's Intelligent Systems Group or ISG. ISG is a best in class developer and supplier of machine vision and perceptive autonomy software solutions. ISG's Virginia office will become AeroVironment's artificial intelligence and innovation center, serving as a focal point for our accelerated development of advanced capabilities that will significantly enhance the intelligence and autonomy of our entire solution set. For example, ISG's technology automatically processes imagery from any source to search for specific objects, detect changes over time and develop pattern of life analysis.
Once the ISG software identifies an object, a mission profile can be loaded into our unmanned systems, enabling them to search for and identify the object in the field, then modify their missions autonomously to take appropriate actions. I cannot overstate the value of the ISG team's ability to increase the capabilities of our solutions, while also increasing our revenue from customer funded R and D projects. ISG also helps us deepen our relationships with key U. S. Government customers.
The ISG team will merge with our MacreadyWorks advanced solutions team and drive even more innovation into our portfolio for defense and non defense customers. Our new artificial intelligence innovation center will also enhance our presence in the Washington DC area. These are 3 exciting transactions that expand our business, our team and our ability to drive shareholder value over the near and long term. Now shifting to our business results. Our small unmanned aircraft systems product line represented 64% of total revenue in the 3rd quarter, and we remain the leader in the global market for small UAS.
During the quarter, we announced a new extended range antenna for our small UAS that expands the command and control range of our solution set up to 40 kilometers. The international market for our small UAS remains strong contributing to our healthy pipeline. While we are experiencing limitations in our ability to travel during the COVID-nineteen pandemic, which delayed some customer orders, we're confident in our ability to continue delivering strong results. In our tactical missile systems product line, which represented 25% of 3rd quarter revenue, we received the 1st U. S.
Government approval for the export of Switchblade 300. We do not intend to identify the customer for this export. This is an important milestone for us as we market Switchblade's unique capabilities to international customers. We believe additional demand from close U. S.
Allies will also be forthcoming. We expect Switchblade exports to take place within the U. S. Government's foreign military sales or FMS program as opposed to direct commercial sales. We previously stated that Switchblade 600 would compete for the United States Marine Corps' Organic Precision Fires Mounted or OPFM program.
A key competitive demonstration took place in February for this program. We're very proud of the performance of Switchblade 600 over numerous launches and harsh environmental conditions. The multipack launcher we developed for Switchblade 600 also performed as expected, providing the ability to transport and launch multiple loitering missiles from a mobile platform. Due to the impact of the pandemic on program timelines, we now expect a customer down select on this program by the end of our fiscal year 2021. We are building the demand pipeline for Switchblade product line as we continue to develop additional variants and as the U.
S. Navy proceeds with its adoption of Blackwing. Moving now to HAPS, which represented 9% of 3rd quarter revenue. SoftBank Corporation and AeroVironment remain committed to this opportunity and its value creation potential. We have collected a large volume of data from our first five successful test flights and are incorporating our learning into the design of the next aircraft.
We're confident that the next version of Sunglider will facilitate the certification process discuss the ongoing impact of the COVID-nineteen pandemic on our business. We continue to experience some delays in customer contracting decisions on our domestic and international customers who operate largely in remote work configurations. We're also experiencing minor delays in limited areas of our supply chain without impact to our production timelines. While the rate of vaccination continues to rise, we're assuming that the current remote work situation is likely to continue through and beyond the summer. Now I will turn the call over to Kevin McDonald for a summary of Q3 and year to date financials.
Kevin?
Thank you, Wahid. Today, I will be reviewing the highlights of our Q3 and year to date financial performance. I'll be referring to both our press release and earnings presentation available on our website. Revenue for the Q3 of fiscal 2021 was $78,800,000 an increase of 27% from the Q3 of fiscal 2020 revenue of $61,900,000 The breakdown of revenue by product area is contained on Slide 6 of the quarterly earnings presentation. During the quarter, we showed especially strong performance in our TMS product line, which was up 148% from the same period last year.
Small UAS was also up 37% from the same period last year. These higher sales were partially offset by lower halves and other revenue. Revenue for the 1st 3 quarters of fiscal 2021 was $258,900,000 an increase of 12% from the 1st 3 quarters of fiscal 2020 revenue of $232,100,000 Again, the revenue growth was largely due to the 100 percent year over increase in TMS sales, which were partially offset by reduced HAPS revenue. Turning to gross margin, Slide 7 of the quarterly earnings presentation shows our product service mix and overall gross margin trends over the past 5 quarters. Gross margin for the Q3 was $28,600,000 or 36 percent of revenue compared to $23,500,000 or 38 percent of revenue for the prior year Q3.
The lower year over year gross margin percentage was primarily due to an unfavorable product mix, which was partially offset by higher proportion of product versus service revenue. Gross margin for the 1st 3 quarters of fiscal 2021 was $104,900,000 or 41 percent of revenue compared to $99,900,000 or 43 percent of revenue for the 1st 3 quarters of 2020. Again, the lower year over year gross margin was primarily due to an unfavorable product mix. Looking forward, we expect gross margin percentage to decline as a result of increasing intangible amortization expense from the announced acquisitions. While we are still in the process of completing the purchase accounting, we expect the decline in gross margin percentage to be as much as 4 percentage points from increased intangible amortization.
Next, I will turn to operating expenses. SG and A expense for the 3rd quarter was $15,700,000 or 20 percent of revenue compared to SG and A expense of $13,200,000 or 21% of revenue for the Q3 of fiscal 2020. SG and A expense for the 1st 3 quarters of fiscal 2021 was $42,600,000 or 16 percent of revenue compared to $43,100,000 or 19 percent of revenue for the 1st 3 quarters of fiscal 2020. The current quarter increase in SG and A expense was driven by an increase in acquisition related expenses of $3,400,000 partially offset by a reduction in travel and trade show expenses resulting from COVID related restrictions. We expect significant acquisition related expenses in the Q4 as we complete and integrate the recently announced acquisitions.
In addition, we should see higher SG and A as we consolidate the acquisitions and recognize a portion of the intangible amortization expenses as part of SG and A. Integration costs will also continue into fiscal 2020. 2, overall SG and A expense as a percentage of revenue will increase in fiscal 2022 as a result of the intangible amortization and integration costs.
R and D expense for
the 3rd quarter was $13,600,000 or 17 percent of revenue compared to R and D expense of $11,400,000 or 18% of revenue for the Q3 of fiscal 2020. R and D expense for the 1st 3 quarters of fiscal 2021 was $36,700,000 or 14% of revenue compared to $30,900,000 or 13 percent of revenue for the 1st 3 quarters of fiscal 2020. We continue to make R and D investments across our product lines. In absolute dollars, this investment will increase as we absorb the acquisitions, but we expect a decline to approximately 10% of revenue on a full year basis in fiscal 2022. Looking at the bottom line, net income attributable to AeroVironment for the Q3 of fiscal 2021 was $211,000 or $0.01 per diluted share compared to a loss of $1,000,000 or minus $0.04 per diluted share for the Q3 of fiscal 2020.
The $1,200,000 increase in net income was largely a result of higher gross margins of $5,100,000 a higher benefit from income taxes of $900,000 and a reduction in equity investment loss of $1,100,000 These improvements were largely offset by higher SG and A and R and D spending. For the 1st 3 quarters of fiscal 2021, net income was $12,400,000 or $0.51 per diluted share compared to $23,600,000 or $0.98 per diluted share for the 1st 3 quarters of fiscal 2020. The $11,200,000 reduction in net income was primarily due to the $8,400,000 loss from our portion of the HAPS mobile impairment of its investment loan, together with higher R and D spending of $5,800,000 and lower interest income of $3,300,000 These reductions in net income were partially offset by higher gross margin of $5,000,000 In terms of adjusted EPS, Slide 11 shows the reconciliation of GAAP and adjusted or non GAAP diluted EPS. Non GAAP diluted earnings per share for the Q3 2021 was $0.14 per diluted share versus a diluted loss per share for the Q3 of fiscal 2020 of 0 point 0 $1 For the 1st 3 quarters of 2021, non GAAP diluted earnings per share was $1.06 per diluted share versus non GAAP diluted earnings per share for the 1st 3 quarters of fiscal 2020 was $1.07 per diluted share.
Turning to our balance sheet. Our cash position was strong at the end of the Q3 of fiscal 2021 with cash, cash equivalents and investments totaling $384,300,000 an increase of $66,600,000 from the end of fiscal 2020. Total cash from operating activities during the 1st 3 quarters of the year was $79,000,000 of which $40,100,000 was a result of working capital improvements and the remainder from operating activities. The working capital improvement came primarily from the collection of accounts receivables. In terms of capital expenditures, we spent $8,500,000 during the 1st 3 quarters of 2021.
Subsequent to the end of the Q3, we had total cash outlays from our existing cash related to the acquisitions that closed in February of approximately $196,000,000 In addition, in conjunction with the Arturos transaction, we entered into a $200,000,000 term loan facility and a $100,000,000 revolving credit facility with a group of banks. At the close of the Arturis transaction, we drew down $200,000,000 on the term loan facility, which was used to fund the acquisition. The $100,000,000 revolving credit facility remains unused. We expect an additional $54,000,000 of cash outlays related to the Telerab acquisition, which is expected to close during the Q4. Also at the close of the Arturis transaction, we issued approximately 574,000 shares of AV stock to the selling Artura's shareholders.
This stock issuance is restricted and will become sellable in tranches over an 18 month period. I'd also like to note that we are adding adjusted EBITDA as a non GAAP measure on a go forward basis to better inform our investors, particularly given the fact that we now have significant intangible amortization and debt on our balance sheet. Now I'd like to highlight some of our backlog metrics. Our funded backlog at the end of Q3 was $103,900,000 a decrease of $22,100,000 from the Q3 of fiscal 2020 and a decrease of $104,200,000 from the Q4 fiscal 2020 backlog of $208,100,000 The backlog decline is primarily due to delays in orders resulting from the impact of the COVID pandemic. In terms of fiscal 2021 visibility, which is highlighted on Slide 8 of the earnings presentation, As of today, we have year to date revenue in fiscal 2021 of $259,000,000 3rd quarter ending backlog that we anticipate to execute in fiscal 2021 of $76,000,000 Quarter to date bookings, including acquisition backlog assumed that we anticipate to execute in fiscal 2021 of $28,000,000 and unfunded backlog from incrementally funded contracts that we anticipate to recognize revenue during the balance of the year of $20,000,000 This adds up to $383,000,000 or 95 percent of our fiscal 2021 midpoint revenue guidance range.
Now I'd like to turn things back to Wahid.
Thanks, Kevin. The global demand for our unique and broad set of solutions remains healthy. In overseas locations where the U. S. Military has reduced its footprint, we have seen increased demand for ISR solutions, including UAS and ISR services, which our MUAS product line team delivers.
To highlight this point, today we announced the latest task order award from U. S. SOCOM for its MEUAS IV program valued at approximately $7,000,000 for our MUIS ISR services. We have also seen increased demand from allied nations for our capabilities to help them operate when faced with a smaller U. S.
Military presence. Supported by 95% visibility to the midpoint of our guidance range, we are narrowing our full fiscal year 2021 revenue expectations to between $400,000,000 $410,000,000 as summarized on Slide number 9 of our earnings presentation. This range corresponds to the upper half of our prior fiscal year 2021 revenue expectations. Our revised expectations include revenue from the acquired Arcturus UAV and ISG businesses and the pending Telerab acquisition, which we anticipate to close prior to the end of the current fiscal year. We expect that our full year revenue, excluding incremental revenue from our acquired businesses, will achieve the low end of our prior revenue guidance range.
We now expect to deliver adjusted EBITDA of $64,000,000 to $69,000,000 earnings per diluted share of $0.76 to 0 point 96 dollars and non GAAP earnings per diluted share, which excludes acquisition related expenses, amortization of acquired intangible assets and the HAPS mobile investment impairment of between $1.74 $1.94 Achieving these results will represent our 4th consecutive year of profitable double digit revenue growth. Consistent with last quarter's guidance, revenue mix will result in a lower gross margin to total approximately 12% of revenue for this fiscal year. Our strategic acquisitions increase the talent pool across our team and make us a stronger company with a more expansive portfolio of solutions to address a wider variety of customer missions. We have carefully selected dedicated and capable leaders to manage each of these new businesses and are confident in their ability to integrate our new team members into our environment and execute our strategy for near and long term value creation. As a result of the significant portfolio shaping we have undertaken to position us for continued growth and success, we're now providing preliminary expectations for fiscal year 2022 based on our current view of market conditions as follows.
We expect 5 $60,000,000 to $580,000,000 in revenue $110,000,000 to $115,000,000 in adjusted EBITDA earnings per diluted share between $1.38 1 $0.58 non GAAP earnings per diluted share between $2.50 $2.70 and research and development investments of around 10% of revenue. We made provide more refined revenue and EPS expectations in our Q4 and full fiscal year 2021 earnings release in late June, after the completion of all acquisitions and associated purchase accounting. We continue to evolve our business and shape our portfolio to achieve our future state objectives of delivering a range of intelligent multi domain robotic systems. The 3 acquisitions I have discussed today represent major steps toward achieving that future state. Ultimately, our goal is to provide the solutions our customers increasingly will rely upon to achieve their objectives and thereby advance our growth and value creation strategy.
In summary, to reiterate our main points for today's call. First, our team continues to deliver strong results despite the continued challenges presented by the COVID-nineteen pandemic. 2nd, we are on track to achieve our fiscal year 2021 objectives, while delivering our 4th consecutive year of profitable double digit top line growth. And 3rd, we're successfully executing our long term growth strategy through our recent transformative acquisitions that will accelerate our success over the near and long term. Before opening Q and A, I want to thank our talented team across the entire organization for their ongoing commitment to serving our customers and their dedication to doing so during this unprecedented pandemic.
Thank you to our customers for continuing to rely on us to help them succeed and to our shareholders for your ongoing trust. Our commitment to all of our stakeholders remains to help you proceed with certainty. Kevin, Steve and I will now take your questions.
Thank you, Our first question this afternoon comes from Peter Arment of Robert Baird. Peter?
Wahid, Kevin. Wahid, thanks for giving us kind of an initial sneak peek at fiscal 2022. I think it's obviously helpful given all the M and A efforts that you've talked about. But obviously, you had to come up with some sort of basis of what the operations would be. I think when you came into fiscal 2021, you had a 60% visibility kind of on that revenue range.
Maybe if you don't want to break down the specifics of the acquisitions, maybe you just talk about some of the key pieces around that increase when we're thinking about fiscal 'twenty two? Thanks.
Thanks, Peter. Sure. So as I mentioned on my remarks, this will be the 4th consecutive year of profitable double digit top line growth. And our core businesses be before the acquisitions are also within our guidance range. In terms of fiscal year 2022, given the significant positive impact of these acquisitions on our business, we believe it is very helpful for our investors to understand how this will translate into our next fiscal year's anticipated results.
So for that matter, we figured it will be helpful if we could provide some level of clarity as a preliminary outlook for next year. In terms of the overall visibility, we will provide that and amongst other details as we always do on our 4th and full year fiscal year earnings call late in June. What I can tell you is that across our business, demand for solutions both domestically and internationally remains strong. These three acquisitions coupled with our existing portfolio of solutions and positions really position us incredibly well for a very large set of long term growth and opportunities and value creation opportunities for us. So we're delighted.
These are very deliberate and very carefully selected moves that we've made. And I firmly believe in the long term value creation opportunities that these will provide for us and the value that it delivers to our customers' missions.
Peter? Thank you.
Thank you for that.
Just as a follow-up if I could. On just related to the Switchblade 300 to the 1st Allied Nation. Obviously, we've seen in the past how you've been able to just kind of continue to expand the opportunities with your core UAS platforms internationally. Does this follow a similar path or is it something different just given that it's a loitering munition and how do you expect that to kind of be adopted? Thanks.
Sure. Thanks, Peter. Yes, the short answer is absolutely yes. As I've said before, 1st and foremost, the international market adoption for our Switchblade, the entire family actually, just not the Switchblade 300, but now also the expansion into our Switchblade 600 and other variants definitely represents an equal if not larger opportunity for us globally internationally outside of domestic markets. We are extremely delighted that after a very long many years of hard work that we were able to achieve successfully obtaining an export license for an Allied Nation for our Switchblade 300.
We are not in a position to be able to disclose the name of that customer for sensitivity purposes, but this is absolutely a paradigm shift in terms of the future of our TMS business and this disruptive capability that we brought to the market. We also are engaged, as I've said in my remarks, with multiple other Allied countries. Obviously, these things take a lot of time, but I think that the opportunity is great and our team has been incredibly good at executing our plans as we have said before. So we look forward to updating you in the future on that.
Thank you, Peter. And our next question comes from Pete Skibitski of Alembic Global. Pete?
Hey, good afternoon, guys, and congrats on all the accomplishing all the hard work this quarter.
Good afternoon. Thank you, Peter.
Just want to ask a little just a follow-up on Peter's questions. For both fiscal 2021 and fiscal 2022 in your revenue guidance, are you assuming kind of some incremental you touched on this Wahid a little bit in your opening remarks, but are you kind of assuming some incremental headwind from international small UAS?
Actually what I mentioned in my remark Pete is that in general primarily because of the COVID pandemic and the restrictions that it has placed for our domestic and international customers to travel, to come for acceptance tests and flight demos and do trainings. We have seen some delays because of that restriction in terms of contract timing. We've seen some in our supply chain, but we've really managed all of those and mitigated them extremely well. I'm very proud of our team's achievements in that regard. Going into next fiscal year, we have a very healthy pipeline of opportunities internationally for our small UAS.
No doubt that the change in the U. S. Posture and the drawdown of our troops has also motivated our international customers to take a harder look in terms of equipment themselves with ISR services and capabilities to sort of make up for that. So I think that going into fiscal 2022, we have a very healthy pipeline of international opportunities. That's pretty diverse and robust in terms of size and volume customers as well.
And I don't see any major issues, especially if we can get this pandemic behind us sometimes, hopefully, towards the end of the summer or so. But in general, we've seen some delays and overall pretty good, pretty healthy demand overall.
Okay, great. I appreciate that. Just one follow-up. Just on the HAPS, it sounds like the test events are coming along nicely. You're going to make some improvements.
Should we expect kind of a new contract at some point for kind of the next kind of uprated Sunrider in the next couple of quarters or so? What's the right way to think about that?
Yes. So as I mentioned on the remarks, Pete, that both companies are committed to the long term value creation opportunity of the HAPS and what value it brings and how large of a multibillion dollar market it is going after and attacking. In terms of the short term, we are working with our partner. We've had 5 consecutive successful flights, as I said, and we have an enormous amount of learning from that. There's tremendous amount of data that we've collected, all of which was our original plan to incorporate into the building and designing of the next generation of that airplane.
It's very, very natural in terms of the development exercise and progression of that. So we are working with our customer to figure out a way to either augment the existing contract or put in place a new contract to continue to work. We do not foresee any disruptions there short term, but obviously we're entering a phase where we're going to be continuing to improve the product, improve its certification chances and improve its ability to be able to manufacture it more reliably and cost effectively. And we'll keep you updated. And I'm very proud of the team again, despite the COVID pandemic, how well we've executed throughout these difficult times, this very critical program in our business so far.
Thank you, Pete. Our next question comes from Ken Herbert at Canaccord Genuity. Ken?
Yes. Hi, good afternoon. Wajid, I wanted to just first ask, the guidance, the initial look at 2022 implies some nice margin expansion. But does the guidance imply maybe a step down in the margins or the contribution as a percentage from Acturus as you have that for a full year?
Hi, Ken. I would say that we're very, very delighted with the potential outlook for fiscal 2022 both in terms of our core business and in the acquisitions. Overall, I would say it's very much in line with what we expected. And the progress that we're already making so far with both an EUAS4 program, which we announced an award, a $7,000,000 award today, and a very successful demonstration that we did for the Army's FTUAS program. So it gives me a lot of confidence that we're positioned extremely well.
Keep in mind, these are strategic long term moves and acquisitions that we've done. Not only are they actually bringing and delivering incremental significant both top line and bottom line EBITDA improvements in our financials, but it also represents a very large opportunity long term and our 1,000,000,000 of dollars of market opportunities. The MUIS alone represents over $1,000,000,000 market opportunity for us. So what we're trying to do is, we just closed the acquisition. We're engaged with the team.
Everything that we're engaged with them so far looks quite good, but there's a lot more work to be done and we'll keep you updated throughout next quarter as we go forward.
Okay. That's great. And if I could, just a follow-up on the FTUAS. What should we expect in terms of the next milestones or time lines? And can you give any more sort of any more detail around the demo flights a few weeks ago and how the system performed?
Sure. So this was actually key selected players to come in and demonstrate their capability. This was key selected players to come in and demonstrate their capability. This was primarily to see how far along and mature the solution sets are from various competitors as well as to inform them in terms of the requirements that they are going to sort of finalize and conclude before they actually really hold the competition in terms of a formal RFI or RFP. They haven't announced any specific milestones as a result of this so far.
It is a longer term program, which I believe it's expected to be able to be awarded within another year and a half to 2 years. But in general, what really impressed me and what I'm very pleased about is that our solution set performed extremely well despite the very difficult challenges in terms of the environmental conditions, wind conditions and the scenarios that the customer obviously creates for us, we believe that our team and our system really performed well. So that is a fairly positive sign for us that at least positions us quite well. We still have to compete and we're no we're not unfamiliar with that. We're very familiar with that, but I think we're positioned quite well.
Thank you, Ken. Now we'll turn to Louis de Palma at William Blair. Hi, Louis.
Good afternoon. How are you, Louie?
I'm doing well. Over the past 3 months, there has been increased investor appetite for next generation space technologies. Many investors view AeroVironment with Sunglider in this next gen space category. Can you discuss the competitive environment for Sunglider and how your aircraft stands versus others that are pursuing the same type of HAPS aircraft? And on this topic, do you have specific patents on the aircraft engineering that will prevent like other aerospace giants from attempting to copy what you have done after you've been doing what appears to be all of the heavy lifting and like certification process?
Thanks.
Louie, so great questions. Let me address both of them one at a time. The first one, in terms of the competitive landscape and the value proposition of our Sunglider versus all the other near space alternatives and competitive platforms, I can tell you that both our partners, strategic partner and ourselves feel quite confident. This is a space or a category where AeroVironment has an enormous amount of track record and successful experiences, which is unmatched in the entire industry and the world. There is nobody that I know of that has achieved as much as we have and as much progress we've made so far as we have in the space.
We also feel very strongly about the competitive differentiators of Sunglider against not only other solar HAPS platforms, but also other competitive alternatives, such as balloons or micro or geosynchronous or LEO satellites. And we really believe that HAPS has a compelling value proposition in that space. In terms of patent and our ability to sustain that differentiated competitive advantage, it is fundamentally part of our strategy from the beginning to defend and have a competitive advantage in that area. We have numerous, numerous patents from past as well as from the last 2 to 3 years work that we have filed, both jointly at HAPS Mobile also separately their environment. So there are a number of patents that we have in terms of the design of the architecture, the constellation, the different subsystems of the airplane, the way it actually even provides communication, etcetera, etcetera.
So if you like, we could provide you with more details on a separate discussion later. But in general, these are stuff that we filed publicly and they're available and we feel very good about our competitive position in terms of us versus all the other players who claim that they can compete in this space and we welcome that competition.
Thanks, Wahid. And I also wanted to say congrats on the Switch Blade export approval. That is something that many investors have been waiting for a long time. And my last question is, does the preliminary fiscal 2022 guidance assume any contributions from those 3 program competitions that you referenced, like such as the Telerab explosive disposal competition, the long range precision fires mounted or the FTUAS? Like are there assumed contributions from those competitions in the forward guidance?
Thanks.
So Louie, we will provide you with a lot more details in our next earnings conference call when we go to detailed summary of our outlook for fiscal year 2022. We believe that the current preliminary numbers that we provided you because of the significant strategic moves that we've made that has an impact on our next fiscal year, we felt that this was this level of visibility at this time was critical for shareholders and analysts. In general, I could tell you that we have a very large portfolio of opportunities, both in our core businesses and in our acquired businesses that we're integrating with the rest of our businesses. Our position in the space is incredibly strong. Our breadth and depth of our portfolio of opportunities is pretty large and diversified.
We're very fortunate to have access to such large opportunities at various different ends of the spectrum, and I believe that we're very uniquely positioned against all other competitors in the space to provide a multi domain intelligent robotic system solution coupled with AI and autonomy and artificial intelligence capabilities. So as you saw from our comments, revenue range of about $560,000,000 to $580,000,000 is a significant growth on our current numbers. And obviously a very strong growth on our non GAAP earnings per diluted share, going all the way up to $2.50 $2.70 range. So we look forward to providing more details on the next call.
Thank you, And our next question comes from Joe DeNardi at Stifel.
Hey, good afternoon, Steve, Wahid, Kevin.
Hi, Joe.
Wahid, yes, sorry to kind of beat this one to death, but I think it's what folks are kind of focused on a little bit. And just to clarify, you said that absent the acquisitions, you would have come in at the low end of the FY 'twenty one revenue guidance. Is that right? And then can you just quantify how much organic revenue growth is implied in the FY22 guidance for us?
Joe, as I said in my remarks that, yes, if you look at our original guidance that we provided at the beginning of our fiscal year 2021, about a year ago from now, our organic businesses or core businesses, as you referred to it as that, would still be within our guidance range, although on the lower end. Again, that's a there's a variety of outcomes at any given time that we look at that gives us a probability of risk adjusted probability of where we think we're going to land. With these acquisitions, although one of them are still not closed, but we expect that to close this quarter, which is this month, we still believe that we're going to be within our guidance, but at the upper limit. So we're very pleased with that. One of the things that has affected us and that's upset throughout the entire year is that this pandemic has had some timing delays on the actual timing of these orders.
We have a very healthy pipeline. We're involved with lots of different customers and opportunities across our entire portfolio. We've got a pretty significant quarter, which we're ready for and we expected as we planned. And we look forward to delivering that. So again, this will be a 4th consecutive year of double digit top line profitable growth.
And I can't think of another company that's positioned so well as we are in our space for the long term value creation opportunities that we have in front of us. The size of the markets, the breadth of our solution, the ability for us to solve our customers' problems end to end is really, really unmatched in the industry. So we look forward to that for the long run.
Okay. And the organic revenue growth implied in the FY 2022 guidance?
We have we will be providing those details, Joe, as we said on our 4th quarter and full fiscal year earnings conference call coming up in the next one. At this point, we provided the amount of preliminary information that we can based on what see. Keep in mind, we still haven't closed one of the acquisitions. We still haven't finished this year, which we intend to do and deliver on our commitments and our expectations and look forward to another year. And again, the amount of progress we've made on our key growth initiatives is remarkably impressive based on what we've done so far, given all the headwinds with the COVID pandemic, change of administration, change of political parties in terms of power in the Congress, etcetera, etcetera.
But we're looking at we're in a good position.
We have no further questions at this time. And so we thank you for your attention and for your interest in AeroVironment. An archived version of this call, all SEC filings and relevant company and industry news can be found on our website avinc dotcom. We wish you a good day and look forward to speaking with you again following next quarter's results.