Flying

The UH-60 Black Hawk has been the rugged workhorse of U.S. Army aviation for nearly 50 years, with around 4,000 examples currently in service with 36 nations worldwide. Many of these helicopters, and new aircraft coming off the line, are set to fly as far out as 2070, and Sikorsky is curating a suite of upgrades to keep them valuable assets for the future fight. A new “digital backbone” is designed to underpin swift technological insertions such as launched effects, with related initiatives including the provision of more power to lug greater payloads, and the fully-autonomous U-Hawk cargo drone variant.

“As part of an overall “Black Hawk 2070” modernization effort we’re developing a number of complementary capabilities, including our U-Hawk uncrewed cargo variant, which we plan to fly later this year,” Jason Wrigley, Sikorsky’s director of business development for Black Hawk, told TWZ at the company’s Stratford plant in Connecticut.

“A new digital backbone for the Black Hawk is at an advanced design phase in our labs and it’s designed to provide interfaces throughout the aircraft that will provide power, data, a network, cooling and most importantly, open architecture interfaces that enable the easy integration of new equipment, such as sensors. We see this as a core building block for the next generation of Black Hawk, along with new engines and other airframe improvements designed to futureproof the platform.”

The new digital backbone is designed to work in concert with a modern, software-driven strategy that meets the Army’s Modular Open Systems Approach and the desire to add technologies cheaper, faster, and more easily. Wrigley says that as customers identify new capabilities and needs for their Black Hawks, the digital backbone will be sufficiently efficient to permit customization even on a mission-by-mission basis. Sikorsky is also introducing a new modular nose to the H-60, which is reconfigurable with sufficient volume to support even more sensors and electronics.

“There’s a big focus on open architecture and that ability to quickly plug-and-play,” says Wrigley. “The new modular nose will change the look of the Black Hawk up front to provide even more space for equipment that will work directly with the new digital architecture.”

The new modular nose will give the Black Hawk more than twice the internal volume of the original nose section and it’s designed to provide space for internal electronics and an integrated mount for external sensor pods. It is designed to provide sufficient space to accommodate electronics that enable roles such as search and rescue, drone control, and flying in degraded environments, and it will also house some of the equipment required as the Black Hawk’s autonomous capabilities expand.

Joshua Powers spent 22 years as an Army Aviation officer flying the Black Hawk, and he’s well qualified for his new role with Sikorsky handling business development for rapid capabilities insertions. “Army units know the Black Hawk inside out; how to fly it, maintain it, and use it to maximum effect. The upgrades we are developing will bring new capabilities faster, without time-consuming and complex changes to sustainment, training, and operations, plus we are adding more range, more payload, and more power to meet the demands of the Indo-Pacific region.”

“I find it amazing to pair new technology with a rugged platform like the Black Hawk. These new innovations are needed to meet the needs of the new complex battlefield. The fight I fought in Iraq is very different from the current operating environment and what future warriors are going to go up against, and what we’re asking them to do is very different from what came before.”

Bringing autonomous co-pilots to the Black Hawk

Autonomy is a central pillar of Sikorsky’s strategy for the future Black Hawk. The company’s MATRIX autonomy software is now being matured on a UH-60M variant, and while it’s not necessarily designed to completely replace pilots, MATRIX will assume some of their workload, making flying safer and simpler as mission sets grow increasingly complex and dangerous. “Pilots that are controlling collaborative drones, for example, need to be able to focus on the drone mission, and autonomy will help lighten their cognitive load,” explains Wrigley.

“The standard Black Hawk crew operates with two pilots. Adding our MATRIX autonomy system gives the operator options – a single pilot could fly without an unbearable workload and still fulfil a mission commander role, for example. The Army could then operate the Black Hawk with no pilots at all when that’s the appropriate option.”

Sikorsky’s MATRIX autonomy has been developed on the company’s UH-60A fly-by-wire Optionally Piloted Black Hawk, which has been tested by Sikorsky and Army aviators. MATRIX has accumulated more than 1,000 flight hours across 500 tests and demonstrations. It has already been integrated on over 20 different platforms, including on the Black Hawk for testing by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the U.S. Army in multiple exercises.

“We delivered the first UH-60MX to the Army earlier this year,” says Wrigley. The delivery marked the first full authority fly-by-wire and optionally-piloted UH-60 in the Army fleet. “They are using it for testing and soldier feedback to develop tactics, techniques and procedures for the autonomous Black Hawk. We have since received a contract to deliver three more MX aircraft to the Army.” 

MATRIX autonomy kits have now been installed on all three U.S. Army Black Hawk models; the UH-60A, UH-60L and UH-60M. Sikorsky plans to incorporate autonomy options into all Black Hawks as they are built, plus the MATRIX system will be able to be retrofitted to existing examples.

Powers is well aware of the benefits autonomy will provide from complex combat operations to more mundane day-to-day missions. “Flying at night and seeing the tracer fire coming up at you, things like that, I honestly feel that’s not the big threat. It’s when you’re going to land and there’s just a big dust cloud. When you’re tired, you aren’t as focused. Having MATRIX, whether that’s with one, two, or no pilots, it’s about that reduced workload on the mission. Pilots won’t be as fatigued, plus they have the safety net of a fully autonomous aircraft that can, if needed, land in all of those difficult environments. It will give commanders more operational flexibility and the ability to mitigate risk in less-than-ideal conditions dictated by the enemy or weather.”

“The Black Hawk operation isn’t just about pilots, it’s also that integrated four-person crew. As a pilot, you’re relying on your senses and also on the guys in the back to watch out and tell you where you’re going. MATRIX is just going to help that team effort and put you in a better position to bring the crew back safely. It integrates all the systems and sensors and uses altitude, airspeed, radar altimeter, drift indications, and puts the fly-by-wire technology to where it can make rapid adjustments and changes based on what it’s seeing with the sensors.”

The volume of testing, the maturity, and the confidence in MATRIX helped Sikorsky to develop the S-70UAS, or U-Hawk, which was unveiled in 2025. The U-Hawk project essentially removes the cockpit and its associated equipment from a Black Hawk and replaces the front end with cargo doors to provide a huge internal space as a supply drone.

“We acquired a used UH-60L Black Hawk as the template for our initial U-Hawk. We added the clamshell doors and that was the actual aircraft that we showed at AUSA last year,” says Wrigley. “Since then we’ve been adding the fly-by-wire and integrating the MATRIX autonomy. It’s currently in our innovations hangar in Bridgeport, Connecticut, getting the final work done and it will make its first flight as a U-Hawk later this year.”

Sikorsky sees the U-Hawk as a natural evolution for the Black Hawk in contested logistics missions, when cargo needs to be moved but the threat is sufficiently high that it drives a need for uncrewed platforms to tackle the mission. 

“We’re spending a lot of time on the U-Hawk and its roles. As well as being an uncrewed cargo helicopter, it can also be a truck that can carry a large volume of launched effects,” explains Wrigley. “There are Black Hawk models on the market right now that are being divested, and we see those as being an ideal option for conversion to U-Hawk configuration to affordably introduce this capability to the market.”

Drone dispenser

The integration of small drones dubbed ‘launched effects’ into rotary-wing operations is a major initiative from the Army as a new means to collect intelligence for commanders on the battlefield, relay communications, jam and distract enemy emitters, and act as loitering munitions. These mini air-launched drones can be carried and fired from stub-wing-mounted launchers, with other concepts seeing larger volumes of them carried inside the cabin as a “mega-pack,” with Sikorsky seeing both as being highly-applicable to both the Black Hawk and the U-Hawk.

This is exactly the kind of capability that the digital backbone in the Black Hawk is intended to open the door to; installing plug-and-play drone command kits, which could enable the Black Hawk to act as a “drone mothership” to launch, task, and command swarms of multi-mission launched effects.

The Army tested its latest operational concepts for launched effects during the Project Convergence Capstone 6 demonstration event this summer. This annual exercise is designed to develop concepts and tactics as well as gather soldier feedback, as it works to transition new systems into service. The latest exercise built on previous launched effects testing on the Black Hawk, when a UH-60M deployed Anduril’s Altius-700 launched effects that then operated as an autonomous hunter-killer team to locate targets, share data on those targets, and then strike them, without the need for the Black Hawk to expose itself to threats.

“As a young Black Hawk pilot, the OH-58 Kiowa Warrior was the primary scout platform, but it was limited by range and its ability to be detected,” explains Joshua Powers. “Today, we launch small drones that can remain unseen and they can give us real-time feedback. Launched effects make our lift assets more capable.”

“We see the Black Hawk as the aircraft capable of carrying, deploying and then acting as an airborne mission command node for launched effects,” adds Jason Wrigley. “In the operational environment of the future, it’s really about the mass of those launched effects. This isn’t about carrying one or two of them, this is about carrying and controlling a large number of them.”

“We’ve tested them on the stub-wings, but we are also exploring what we call “quiver” – that large number of launched effects inside the cabin in that “mega-pack.” This creates additional opportunities for mass that we think is going to be really critical. We’ve done a lot of operational analysis in concert with the Army on what the right mix of launched effects might be to extend the standoff range of the aircraft to improve survivability – which is of course what it’s all about – but the right mix will ultimately come down to the mission. We have seen a lot of testing over the past few years, so we do believe this is a capability that can be introduced operationally soon on the Black Hawk.”

More power for more missions

To support the increased lift that might be needed for a missionized Black Hawk lugging large payloads, including an arsenal of launched effects, Sikorsky is well along in development of a new engine that is designed to create over 1,000 pounds of increased payload capacity and increased range for the Black Hawk. The T901 Improved Turbine Engine (ITE) from GE Aerospace provides 50 percent more horsepower over the existing T700 engines in the UH-60M.

“One of the key building blocks of the future of the Black Hawk are the twin ITEs as we look to expand the mission capability and the utility of this aircraft for decades to come,” explains Wrigley. Sikorsky began initial testing of the first UH-60M with ITE in January 2025. “We are actively in the test program right now at our test facility in West Palm Beach, Florida. The twin ITEs in each Black Hawk and that additional power translates into some pretty significant operational opportunities. Since our first flight with ITE in May 2025 we’ve flown the aircraft with the new engine for over 50 hours and up to 17,000 ft above sea level.”

Sikorsky is accompanying the addition of the new engines with a significant expansion of the fuel tank to increase capacity and range. This is being done without impinging on cabin volume and thus retaining the important ability to transport 11 combat troops, while increasing range by around 100 nautical miles. “The T901 also improves fuel efficiency and eases maintenance – so overall we are really improving the payload capacity of the aircraft. We’ll be getting to the milestone C production decision on ITE within the next couple of years, and at that point it will become a core element of the Black Hawk program going forward,” Wrigley explains.

Inside Sikorsky’s “Black Hawk 2070” Plan With Drones, Autonomy, And The Pilotless U-Hawk.

Building Black Hawks

Touring the Black Hawk production line in Stratford, Connecticut, it’s a hive of activity. Many of the major components for each helicopter are manufactured here. The long final assembly line sees teams of workers busily constructing UH-60M and HH-60M medevac Black Hawks for both domestic and foreign military sales customers, along with new HH-60W Combat Rescue Helicopters for the U.S. Air Force and MH-60R Seahawks.

“We’re designing all of these upgrades with the intent that they will all be available off the production line in new build aircraft, as well as in kit form for upgrades to existing assets in the field,” notes Wrigley. “Here in Stratford in what we call the “back shop” we build all the rotor blades, gearboxes, and many other components that go into each aircraft. We are already thinking ahead and we’ve invested significantly into additive manufacturing, with 11 parts on the Black Hawk today that are additively manufactured. It’s a great place to start, but there’s a long way to go and we’re working on qualifying more challenging components and load-bearing parts.”

Cohesively, the digital backbone, larger fuel tank, new engines, and the new modular nose will all be introduced on the production floor in the coming years to pave the way for that increased payload capacity to carry fully-equipped combat troops, supplies, and all the new kit needed for the future fight and the Black Hawk’s role as a multi-mission forward battlefield node. The autonomous U-Hawk and the optionally piloted flexibility afforded by MATRIX – all of these pieces of the future Black Hawk are presently coming together under an overarching effort.

“The future Black Hawk will be that complement to the future long-range MV-75 Cheyenne II,” says Powers. “These won’t be a one-for-one replacement for every Black Hawk currently in the fleet – the MV-75 has a specific purpose and function that the Black Hawk isn’t designed to do. What the Black Hawk can do with these new upgrades is shape the battlefield and with its autonomy be out there flying missions into contested environments.”

“Those homeland missions are equally necessary. I recall talking about this in flight school when choosing an aircraft to fly, how it’s one thing to be deployed on combat missions, but it’s also about being back in the homeland on disaster relief when you need the Black Hawk to go out and save lives, those kinds of missions the Army National Guard does – it really underlines the importance and versatility of the Black Hawk.”

Over the past 50 years and looking ahead to the next 50, continuing the proven legacy of the Black Hawk will mean constant evolution to meet new missions and needs. Sikorsky’s task is for all of these new elements to meld into a future Black Hawk that’s ready to roll off this production line soon, that still also provides the same dependable, rugged capability for the Army at home or overseas, well into the future.

It was so hot at Dodger Stadium on Saturday…

How hot was it?

It was so hot a team that averaged nearly 50,000 fans for often meaningless regular-season games beat the Atlanta Braves 5-3 in its first postseason game before thousands of empty seats — some of which were literally too hot to sit in.

It was so hot the Dodgers set up pallets of bottled water near the gates and anyone brave enough to enter the stadium was given a plastic 16-ounce Dasini bottle. Gatorade also set up a cooling tent under the right-field pavilion.

It was so hot Nicolas Gonzalez, a fan sitting in the shade of the reserved level, saw a stadium attendant, overcome by heat, stretchered before the game even started. She wasn’t the only one. By the later innings, other fans on the reserved level were reportedly seeking medical attention on the concourse.

The Dodgers declined comment.

So how hot was it?

The game started 45 minutes after the National Weather Service issued an extreme heat warning, cautioning against “extremely dangerous heat conditions” as the temperature reached 100 degrees at first pitch. By the third inning, the temperature reading atop the left-field scoreboard peaked at 103 degrees, matching the highest first-pitch temperature at 64-year-old Dodger Stadium.

“I’ve been coming to games my whole life and this is easily the hottest game I’ve ever been to,” said Gonzalez, 38, of Culver City. “Having a game in these conditions feels like we’re flying too close to the sun, both literally and figuratively.”

A fan tries to stay cool during Game 1 of the NLDS between the Dodgers and Atlanta Braves at Dodger Stadium on Saturday.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Around him, fans tried to cool themselves by waving makeshift fans. It didn’t work.

But the weather didn’t just effect the way the game was watched. It effected the way it was played, too. The cloudless skies made every pop-up an adventure and the warm, dense air reduced drag, allowing batted balls to travel further. As a result, the teams combined for five homers, accounting for all eight runs.

“That’s probably one of the hottest games that we’ve ever had here. And so shout out to the Dodger fans; they were amazing,” said Max Muncy, who hit of those five homers.

“My feet were hot. Really hot.”

The Dodgers wound up with an early afternoon game in the middle of a historic heat wave because MLB and the TV networks — in this case Fox and TBS — set conditional start times for the four Division Series games before the teams and matchups were known. When the San Diego Padres eliminated the Chicago Cubs in the wild-card round, Saturday’s early NL game went to the Dodgers.

Left-hander Tarik Skubal, who gave up just a run on two hits in six innings to get the win in his Dodger postseason debut, said he didn’t really notice the heat until he came out of the game.

“I walked back into the dugout, and I asked — I forget who, I think it was [Blake] Snell — I was like, ‘has it been this hot all game?’ It’s amazing what your brain can do in certain circumstances and moments,” he said.

“I actually didn’t think it was horrible when I was pitching.”

But then Skubal pitched in much hotter conditions as a kid growing up in northern Arizona.

“I played a Little League game in 127 [degrees]. Lake Havasu,” he said. “[Saturday’s] up there with as hot a baseball game that you can play in.

“Every team’s playing in it, right? They’re playing in the same conditions we are. It shouldn’t really impact how you are mentally or how it’s going to impact how you pitch. Just go out there and play baseball and try to drink water. That’s really it.”

At least Skubal got to drink his water in the relative cool of the dugout between innings. Umpire Roberto Ortiz, wearing 10 pounds of protective gear and a black-and-gray uniform, got no such relief. He had to stand behind the plate for 2 hours 44 minutes and all 290 pitches, one of which smoked him in the seventh inning.

That’s why his five fellow umpires made a point of patting him on the back or shoulder before jogging to their positions for the first pitch.

“He stayed tough,” Dodger catcher Will Smith said of Ortiz. “I’m sure he’ll rehydrate and be ready for tomorrow.”

Speaking of tomorrow, the Dodgers, Braves and the umpires will all get some relief for Game 2. At first pitch Sunday afternoon the Weather Channel is forecasting a temperature of just 97 degrees.

“The dark silver lining,” Gonzalez, the heat-weary fan said in a nod to global warming, “is this might be the coolest October of the rest of our lives.”

The U.S. Navy has given us the first look at Blackbeard hypersonic strike missiles under the wings of F/A-18E/F Super Hornets during actual flight testing. The Navy is hoping to have Blackbeard in at least limited service no later than 2028, giving its carrier air wings an all-new fast-flying standoff weapon, particularly for engaging enemy ships. The missile is also being designed to be relatively cheap and quick to manufacture.

The Navy’s Office of the Portfolio Acquisition Executive for Aviation (PAE-A) has released a video montage of Blackbeard undergoing flight testing, seen in the social media post below. The service confirmed that it had at least begun test-loading the missiles onto F/A-18E/F Super Hornets in a presentation at the Tailhook Association’s annual convention last month. Now we know the program has moved ahead substantially from that point.

The company behind Blackbeard, defense start-up Castelion, has received several multi-million-dollar contracts from the Navy just this year explicitly to support integration of the weapon onto the Super Hornet, as well as otherwise accelerating its development. In its daily contracting on September 14, the Pentagon announced the Navy had struck yet another deal with Castelion, valued at $43.65 million, “for the manufacturing, assembly, testing, and delivery of the first production lot of 444 All-Up Rounds (AURs), defined as fully functional tactical missiles packaged within specialized shipping and storage containers.”

In terms of what we know today about Blackbeard’s design and capabilities, as we have previously written:

“A profile photo [seen below] at the company’s headquarters reveals a weapon with a ballistic missile-like booster, on top of which is mounted what could be an unpowered hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV). A booster brings an HGV to the desired velocity and altitude before releasing it toward its target. The concept is in contrast to air-breathing cruise missiles capable of traveling at hypersonic speeds. Hypersonic speed is generally defined as anything above Mach 5, which larger ballistic missiles also reach in the course of their flights. More precise performance figures for Blackbeard are lacking, but Castelion has previously hinted it could hit targets out to just under 500 miles. Alternatively, the second stage may also have its own motor, allowing it to continue accelerating or sustain high-speed flight. A similar arrangement has been suggested as the propulsion system for the Russian Zircon missile.”

“Both stages of the weapon have cruciform fins, while the upper one features a prominent ‘chine’ line along the length of its body, and a slightly beaklike nose. The trolley on which the weapon is mounted provides some idea of its overall size. The blue stripes seen on each stage normally signify that a munition is an inert, non-explosive round utilized for training or tracking purposes. This would indicate a real (unarmed) missile rather than a dummy or mockup.”

A picture shown at Tailhook had also offered a new look at the front of the missile, exposing what looked to be an aperture on one side of the design’s wedge-shaped nose. As we wrote after that image emerged:

“The apparent apertures are also seen pointed up, but many air-launched munitions do flip down after release.”

“How exactly Blackbeard is guided remains unknown, but a downward-angled aperture at the nose end for a seeker system would make sense for this weapon, which the Navy is pursuing primarily as a new way to target enemy ships. In particular, a wide array of existing anti-ship and land attack missiles, as well as certain anti-air types, have variously shaped apertures in their noses for imaging infrared seekers. Imaging infrared has the benefit of being immune to radio frequency electronic warfare jamming. In addition, it is a passive capability that does not send out signals that can give an opponent advance notice of an incoming attack. Blackbeard’s full guidance package very likely also includes some means of navigating to a target area first, and it could have multiple modes of operation.”

The new flight testing footage released today also underscores the relatively small size of Blackbeard overall. While the Super Hornet is set to be the first operational launch platform, it is very likely to be integrated on other aircraft quickly thereafter. The Navy is acquiring Blackbeard under a program called the Multi-mission Affordable Capacity Effector (MACE).

Requirements for MACE that the Navy put out previously explicitly called for a design compact enough for carrier-based F-35C (and land-based F-35A) Joint Strike Fighters to carry four of them internally. Whether that remains a goal in any way is unclear. Still, being able to carry some number of Blackbeards internally would not only give those jets a hypersonic strike weapon, but one that they could carry in the most stealthy configuration. The Navy also notably does operate the F-35A outside of the test and evaluation community, which might point to air-launched Blackbeards entering service elsewhere in the future. As an aside, the U.S. Army is pursuing a ground-launched version of this missile, as well.

Another critical aspect of Blackbeard is the emphasis on lower cost and the ability to produce the missiles readily at scale. The conflict with Iran has fully driven home long-standing concerns about the depth of U.S. stockpiles of various critical munitions, as well as its ability to replenish them quickly. Blackbeard reflects a larger push across America’s armed forces to add more cost-effective weapons that can be acquired on faster timetables to their arsenals. Bringing in new, smaller companies like Castelion to develop and build these munitions has also been a major point of focus. To put this all in immediate context, in May, the Pentagon announced a framework agreement to buy 12,000 Blackbeards over the next five years.

As mentioned, the Navy’s stated goal now is to reach an early operational capability with Blackbeard by 2028, if not sooner. What the exact fielding plan for those missiles might be is unclear. PAE-A did write “Coming soon to a theater near you” in its post on X containing the video montage, and tagged the official accounts for U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM). CENTCOM oversees U.S. military activities in and around the Middle East, including ongoing operations against Iran. U.S. military officials have also long touted hypersonic weapons, in general, as key to success in any future conflict in the Pacific, especially a high-end fight against China.

It’s also worth noting here that U.S. military hypersonic missile programs across the services have faced repeated setbacks and delays over the years. This, in turn, has prompted discussion about a worrisome gap emerging in this arena between the United States and its chief global competitors, especially China. It is very possible now that Blackbeard could be the first operational air-launched type in American inventory, depending on how the U.S. Air Force does or does not proceed with its Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM) program. The Air Force has said previously that it is aiming for HACM to be operational, at least on a limited level, before the end of Fiscal Year 2027, which begins next month.

If nothing else, we have clear evidence that the air-launched version of Blackbeard is now deep in flight testing for the U.S. Navy.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

BRITAIN’S first flying taxi centre has opened and flights could be taking off soon.

The facility has been hailed a “once-in-a-generation milestone” in the development of new aircraft.

Pioneering tech firm Vertical Aerospace has debuted a new first-of-its-kind facility at its Cotswold Airport site in Gloucestershire.

The team based at the assembly centre are currently working on the development and testing of a new form of air taxi called the Valo aircraft.

The electric vehicle seats up to four passengers and can fly up to 160km without any operating emissions.

Construction on the new Valo aircraft is set to begin in late 2027.

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Initially, the tech firm has said it will build 25 aircraft a year but will grow this number to 900 a year by 2035.

Vertical revealed they have already received 1,500 orders, largely from airlines, but is also planning on getting its planes accredited for commercial use by 2029.

The new facilities form part of Vertical’s larger existing flight test centre located at the airport, increasing the site by a further 60,000 sq ft.

Vertical Aerospace’s CEO, Stuart Simpson, told the BBC that we are “getting really close to this idea of flying cars, flying taxis”.

“Opening our aircraft assembly centre is an important step in Vertical’s transition from prototype developer to aircraft manufacturer,” added Simpson.

“Bringing a new category of aircraft to market is a once-in-a-generation opportunity and it is especially rewarding to do that here in Great Britain, drawing on the country’s proud aviation heritage.”

Later this year, plans for a separate full-scale production site are expected to be revealed with the aim of supporting a much larger volume of vehicle manufacturing.

General Atomics has given us the first look at its FQ-42 Vengeance Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) drone flying in formation with crewed fighters. The U.S. Air Force is continuing to expand crewed-uncrewed teaming and other testing of the FQ-42, as well as Anduril’s FQ-44 Fury, as it aims to start fielding both types around the end of the decade.

The newly released picture from General Atomics’ Aeronautical Systems, Inc. division (GA-ASI), seen at the top of this story, shows an FQ-42 in flight together with an F-35A Joint Strike Fighter and an F-15E Strike Eagle. The company has also disclosed the delivery of another Vengeance drone to the Air Force, this time to the service’s main drone operations hub at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada.

“The FQ-42 that arrived at Creech will continue regular test and evaluation operations with the Air Force aimed at experimentation with the new aircraft,” according to a press release GA-ASI put out today. “Previous efforts with Vengeance and other GA-ASI jets, including [the] XQ-67A Off-Board Sensing Station and MQ-20 Avenger – have found the trio of combat jets flying in various scenarios that push the boundaries of combat aviation. GA-ASI’s jets have flown semi-autonomously and autonomously with various AI pilots and under collaborative control of human fighter pilots operating F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II jets.”

GA-ASI has previously confirmed that the XQ-67A, an earlier experimental drone TWZ was first to report on, served as a prototype for the development of the FQ-42. The Air Force’s F-22s also look set to be the first operational airborne controllers for USAF CCAs.

As mentioned, the Air Force is steadily working to broaden the scale and scope of testing involving the FQ-42 and FQ-44 to include more and more operationally relevant scenarios. Both types are set to make their first appearance at a large-force employment (LFE) exercise in December, offering a valuable new opportunity for deeper and more realistic integration with crewed fighters.

The Air Force otherwise continues to lay the groundwork for future CCA operations, including through a major round of testing at Creech in July, which TWZ was first to report on. The service is heavily focused now just on figuring out how the drones will be deployed, launched, recovered, supported, and otherwise operated on a day-to-day basis. A dedicated test squadron called the Experimental Operations Unit (EOU), established at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, has been leading those efforts.

Work is also underway to demonstrate tactical capabilities, such as the FQ-44 launching an AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) for the first time earlier this year.

“We’re on path right now to do our air-to-air shot coming up here in the near future,” Mike Shortsleeve, Vice President for Strategy Business Development at GA-ASI, told TWZ‘s Jamie Hunter on the floor of the Air & Space Forces Association’s (AFA) 2026 Air, Space & Cyber Conference last week.

Last week, GA-ASI separately announced a new demonstration of semi-autonomous air-to-air combat capability involving crewed F-5AT Advanced Tiger jets belonging to private adversary air contractor Tactical Air Support, Inc. and an unspecified “CCA test aircraft.” The company did use a picture of an Avenger drone to illustrate the press release. The F-5s and the CCA surrogate were equipped with infrared search-and-track sensors (IRST) during the testing.

“The live exercise proved that a CCA and a manned fighter can collaborate to fuse sensor data from AMS-GRA-compliant sensors to track, engage, and eliminate an airborne target while using a Beyond Line of Sight (BLOS) data link to accomplish seamless coordination between the two aircraft,” according to the GA-ASI release.

“The demonstration utilized BLOS communication between the CCA and the airborne F-5, enabling the Advanced Tiger to send data about targets from an AMS-GRA-compatible system. These commands were relayed to the CCA’s TacACE [Tactical Autonomy Ecosystem software] system,” the release added. “This flight showed that many companies’ platforms can interoperate using the plug-and-play government reference architectures ecosystem. The U.S. Air Force isn’t locked into using a single vendor or system.”

GA-ASI has previously demonstrated the ability of MQ-20s flying with podded IRSTs to detect and track aerial targets semi-automatically. Generally speaking, IRSTs look set to be an important sensor for future CCAs, and are particularly relevant in the air-to-air role. As we have written in the past:

IRSTs are especially valuable for helping spot stealthy targets with features designed to reduce their radar cross-sections since they detect and track infrared emissions. By extension, IRSTs are also immune to radio frequency electronic warfare jamming. As passive sensors, they do not emit their own signals that could alert a target to the fact they are being tracked, either. IRSTs can still be used to cue or otherwise be linked to other sensors, including active electronically-scanned array radars. Fusing data from multiple sources can provide higher fidelity tracks of multiple targets, as well as improved situational awareness overall.

Air-to-air combat is expected to be the primary mission set, at least initially, for Air Force CCAs. At the same time, an air-to-ground role for the FQ-42 and FQ-44, and/or other future CCA-type drones the Air Force might acquire, is emerging on the horizon. Anduril has already fit-checked a variety of air-to-ground ordnance on Fury.

As it stands now, the Air Force is looking to have its first operational CCAs in service toward the end of the decade. The service is also presently aiming to have a total fleet of at least 500 CCAs of all types by 2032.

“If we can’t be ready, then certainly you’re not going to have the forces that you need and the numbers that you need going forward. This signifies that mass is certainly important again, but also autonomy is just as important,” General Atomics’ Shortsleeve told us last week in talking about the Air Force’s CCA fleet size target. “So the ability to have these autonomous systems, whether they’re bringing in additional weapons, sensing capability, whatever it is, all of those working in a collaborative environment, whether it’s manned, unmanned teaming, or unmanned and unmanned capabilities, that right there is what’s going to help the warfighter in the future.”

FQ-42 Vengeance fighter drone update from General Atomics

“And when we say autonomy, it’s not just strictly this is going to go off and do its own thing. It’s going to be directed,” he added. “Whether it’s on the ground, in the air, [it] makes no difference to the system itself. It’s going to work hand-in-hand [with humans]. So that human-machine teaming, that’s what they’re really focusing on. There is figuring out how to best use this capability in the advancement of actually having to employ it in [the] real world.”

Though just flying in formation is very different from collaboration with a high degree of autonomy, the new picture of the FQ-42 together with the F-35A and the F-15E is a window into the future teamed operations the Air Force is hoping to build.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com