Lockheed Martin’s famed Skunk Works advanced projects division has lifted the lid on a new, higher-end stealthy Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) type drone named Vectis. The uncrewed aircraft is designed to be highly adaptable to an operator’s requirements, whether they be in the United States or elsewhere around the world, and is expected to fly within two years. Vectis notably follows Skunk Works’ failed ‘gold-plated’ high-stealth bid for the first phase of the U.S. Air Force’s CCA program, but still puts above-average emphasis on survivability compared to the other designs that service is now testing.
Skunk Works has yet to share exactly when development of Vectis began, but has described it as a product of a broader development philosophy it has adopted called the Agile Drone Framework. The framework prioritizes modularity and open mission systems, as well as interoperability in areas like command and control architectures, over any specific hardware. The name Vectis means lever or pole in Latin, and is meant to reflect the ‘leverage’ the platform offers.
“Meet Vectis, a Group 5, survivable, lethal, and reusable, Collaborative Combat Aircraft that embodies not only our pedigree in [crewed] fighter aircraft, autonomy, and uncrewed systems, but [that] is also enabled by that Agile Drone Framework,” O.J. Sanchez, Lockheed Martin Vice President and General Manager of Skunk Works, told TWZ and other outlets this past week. “Vectis will provide U.S. and allied warfighters with range, endurance, and multi-mission flexibility, including air-to-air, air-to-surface, and ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance].”
In the U.S. military’s parlance, Group 5 uncrewed aerial systems are the largest and most capable, covering anything pilotless with a maximum takeoff weight of 1,320 pounds or more, and that can fly at altitudes of 18,000 feet or higher. When asked, Sanchez declined to offer any hard dimensions or other specifications for Vectis. He did say it was smaller than a Lockheed Martin F-16 fighter, but larger than one of the company’s Common Multi-Mission Truck (CMMT, pronounced ‘comet’) missile-like drones, which is a very broad size range.
Renderings of Vectis from Skunk Works show a tailless drone with a lambda wing planform and a top-mounted air intake. There is a pronounced chine line around the forward end of the fuselage and a shovel-like shape to the nose, as well as various conformal antennas and/or sensor apertures, all of which are indicative of low-observable (stealthy) design considerations. A short promotional video, seen below, also includes a cutaway view showing an S-shaped duct behind the air intake and exhaust shrouding, features that offer further radar cross-section and infrared signature reducing benefits.
Skunk Works’ Sanchez also said Vectis is runway dependent in its “current instantiation,” something we will come back to later on. Its landing gear configuration has not yet been shown.
Vectis’ core planform is interestingly reminiscent, in some broad strokes, of a rendering of a stealthy aerial refueling tanker concept Skunk Works first showed publicly last year. That aircraft had a much larger design, in line with its intended mission, with large clipped wings that had some lambda-wing attributes, as well as small outwardly-canted twin vertical tails. The look of the new survivable CCA also hearkens back to older concepts for advanced crewed combat jets from Lockheed and other companies, including from studies that fed into the Air Force’s Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) program that led to the F-22.
There has been something of an uptick in recent years in new crewed and uncrewed tactical aircraft designs with lambda or at least lambda-like planforms. This includes one of the several air combat drone designs that emerged around a massive military parade in China earlier this month, as well as one of the two Chinese next-generation crewed combat jets that broke cover in December 2024. The stealthy Wingman drone design that European aerospace conglomerate Airbus unveiled earlier this year is another one of the many examples.
Skunk Works has also declined to share details about Vectis’ intended performance or what engine it might use.
“I would say that in the CCA space, our operational analysis doesn’t point towards supersonic [speed as a central requirement],” Skunk Works head Sanchez shared. “We’ll continue to refine that, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say supersonic is what we see as needed in this space.”
Vectis also has “endurance ranges compatible with Indo-Pacific, European, and CENTCOM [U.S. Central Command] theaters,” according to a Lockheed Martin press release, which does not elaborate further on this aspect of the drone’s capabilities.
What munitions and other payloads Vectis might be able to carry is unclear. Skunk Works’ Sanchez mentioned “reusable or flexible payloads,” but did not elaborate. The promotional video included earlier in this story shows a vignette in which the drones, operating together with an F-22, use unspecified sensors to spot and track aerial threats before being ordered to fire air-to-air missiles, presumably from internal bays, at those targets. Compact radars and/or infrared search and track (IRST) systems would be logical sensor options for supporting the air-to-air role.
As noted, Vectis is also intended to be configurable for air-to-ground and general ISR missions. Another promotional video Lockheed Martin has now released, which covers Skunk Works’ Agile Drone Framework more generally, seen below, shows Vectis drones firing air-to-surface missiles at an enemy air defense site.
Electronic warfare suites and signal relay packages might also be among the payload options for Vectis drones.
The design is “rapidly upgradable and customizable to align to shifting threat environment priorities,” according to Sanchez. “Vectis’ signature and comms are compatible with fifth and next-gen aircraft. We’ve conducted classified crewed-uncrewed teaming operations analysis, pairing F-22s and F-35s with Vectis, and the results are impressive.”
Sanchez clarified later that this operations analysis had been conducted in simulated environments as Vectis is not yet flying. Lockheed Martin is already well known for its extensive work in the unclassified realm on crewed-uncrewed teaming capabilities, including in digital environments and through real-world flight testing, as well as instances that blend the two together. The F-22 is now in line to be the first airborne controller for Air Force CCAs. The company also now has a contract with the U.S. Navy to provide a common command and control architecture for that service’s future CCAs, which will leverage work on its Multi Domain Combat System (MDCX), a software-based package already being integrated into new drone control centers on American aircraft carriers.
“One of the most impressive attributes of the Skunk Works is its long commitment to open mission systems, to architectures that enable a large tent of folks to be able to plug in. That’s why we believe that interoperability is foundational to solving warfighter problems in the decades in front of us,” Sanchez said in response to a question about Vectis’ own level of autonomy. “So when we think about the autonomy and the underpinning software, everything about this will be aligned with the [U.S.] government reference architecture. Our experience delivering that level of capability through the MDCX system to the U.S. Navy, for example, is underpinned with the same approach.”
“We welcome the opportunity to collaborate with others,” he added. “While I won’t disclose exactly how we’ll partner or who we will align with on the software space, the fundamental architecture is open mission systems aligned with government reference architecture. And as that tent expands, we’ll be willing and able to adapt with others and potentially bring kit in alignment with other efforts that are being worked [on] by other companies.”
Sanchez highlighted a recently announced partnership between Lockheed Martin and BAE Systems’ FalconWorks in the United Kingdom as an example of how the company is already collaborating with others, but said that initiative is not tied to Vectis. He also touted demonstrations in the past two years of new capabilities to securely share classified data with foreign F-35 operators as additional examples, more generally, of the current internal focus on interoperability.
“We can connect the Vectis system with any other platform, or anybody or anything in the battlespace,” he said.
In his comments this past week, Sanchez did not speak directly to the matter of physical control interfaces, which has been a matter of contention in recent years, especially when it comes to ordering uncrewed aircraft around from the cockpit of a fighter. Skunk Works has said in the past that its immediate focus is on tablet-like and other touch-screen-enabled devices, but other options may emerge in the future. Questions have been raised about whether tablets, in particular, will create problematic additional burdens for pilots when directing drones during missions.
The Skunk Works’ Agile Drone Framework video shows pilots in F-22s and F-35s using wide-area touch-screen displays to control Vectis drones, as well as CMMTs and a higher-end flying-wing design. The latter drone has a design that looks evolved from Lockheed Martin’s secretive RQ-170 Sentinel, as well as the Sea Ghost concept the company put forward years ago for the U.S. Navy’s abortive Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) program. Lockheed Martin has also included an advanced flying wing design, together with various others, in past promotional materials highlighting work on crewed-uncrewed teaming capabilities.
Overall, “as the future of air power takes shape, Skunk Works is charting a critical path with this Vectis program to unlock new integrated capabilities at an ultra-competitive speed and price point. Vectis provides best-in-class survivability at the CCA price point,” he said during the press call this past week.
Sanchez did not provide any hard cost metrics for Vectis. The Air Force has said in the past that it is aiming for a unit cost roughly in the $20 million range for drones being developed under the first phase, or Increment 1, of its CCA program. The service has also said that it could pursue lower-cost (and less exquisite) designs for the planned follow-on Increment 2.
“Our Increment 1 offering had higher levels of stealth than were necessary in the requirements because of the operational analysis conviction of building something that actually had value to the Air Force over the long haul,” John Clark, then head of Skunk Works, had told TWZ and others at the Air & Space Forces Association’s main annual conference last year. “I think, hindsight 20/20, we could certainly armchair quarterback and say, well the Air Force isn’t valuing survivability right now, so we gold-plated something they didn’t need gold-plated.”
Clark added at the time that Skunk Works had shifted focus, at least to a degree, to exploring optionally expendable designs to meet the Air Force’s Increment 2 CCA requirements, which were still being finalized at that point and have yet to be detailed publicly.
“I think that there will … be a reckoning to come at some point when [the Air Force is] looking at [a scenario where] … I’m going to spend $15 million or $20 million an airplane, and the OA [operational analysis] is telling me that 80 percent or more of them don’t make it home,” Clark also said last year. “How many airplanes am I willing to spend that sort of money on before that’s a losing proposition financially as a nation.”
In April 2024, General Atomics and Anduril received contracts from the Air Force to continue developing their CCA designs, now designated the YFQ-42A and YFQ-44A, respectively. Both of those designs put less emphasis on survivability versus cost compared to how Vectis is currently being presented. In addition to Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrop Grumman had also been in the running for Increment 1.
“When you talked to him at the time, there was certain analysis going for a specific competition that was [what] he was talking to,” Skunk Works’ Sanchez said this past week when asked about how Vectis fits in with Clark’s past comments. “There are design trades that we’ve made in this and mission applications where we clearly see the opportunity for a reusable, highly survivable, and flexible platform like Vectis to create mission effects that are far beyond what you would have without them.”
“So how it applies in each individual mission set starts to get classified … but we absolutely see at Skunk Works that the integration of teams, manned and unmanned teaming, is going to provide battlespace effects that solve hard problems,” he continued. “So that is becoming true, and so Vectis creates a unique space where a survivable platform can deliver effects, in both air-to-ground and air-to-air, by the way – at the time, I believe John was talking to a specific mission set – as well as provide critical information through like an ISR and targeting role, and again, opened up to more than one mission set as we look at both international force design and domestic force design.”
Sanchez also stressed that Vectis is not being developed at present with any particular potential opportunity with the U.S. military or foreign armed forces in mind.
“I would see the Vectis flexibility that’s being built in, along with its survivability, being very attractive to multiple mission problem sets, and then the agility and the way we’re doing the flexible payload design can be tailored towards specific countries or programs as they need,” he said. “So that tailoring will be work that we’ll continue to do with each, but not in direct response to any one [opportunity] – [we’re] more aligned with listening to all those customers, and our knowledge of the battle space has informed our design.”
“We have a lot of overlap with the U.S. Air Force and are supporting their approach to find the right requirements for their specific mission sets. So should the U.S. Air Force find that they need a highly survivable platform with the flexibility that Vectis enables for Increment 2, I think it’ll be a great candidate,” he continued. “We respect their process as they go through and see what’s needed. As you know, every force has specific requirements based on the rest of their force. So this fits squarely in the category of a survivable, reusable, and flexible CCA, and I absolutely think if that’s what the Air Force thinks they need, this would be a great candidate to meet those requirements.”
“The flexibility we show in that Agile Drone Framework through, say, MDCX, also says that you can command these in multiple locations. You can use smart autonomy integrated with a fifth-gen [fighter] cockpit, like the F-35, or perhaps you could do it off the deck of a ship if you needed to, like we’re doing with MDCX, or any manner in between,” he added. “And so we’re building in that kind of autonomy, that flexible autonomy, if you will, so that we can work with more countries, more partners to really listen to what their needs are. So that flexibility has been demonstrated through multiple demonstrations. Now we’ll go out and build it, and we’ll work to prove it in the open air.”
In discussing how Vectis could be adaptable to multiple U.S. and foreign operator requirements, Sanchez also spoke in more detail about the drone’s current dependence on traditional runways, as well as its ability to operate from more austere locations. In the United States, the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Marine Corps, in particular, are currently basing tactical crewed and uncrewed aviation force design decisions around the expectation of operating from distributed forward locations, many of which could be remote and with limited supporting infrastructure. This is all intended to create targeting challenges for enemies and reduce vulnerability, as well as bring aircraft close enough to their targets to be effective at higher sortie rates, especially in the context of a potential high-end fight in the Pacific against China. Other countries are coming to similar viewpoints, especially based on observations from the ongoing war in Ukraine. With all this in mind, reducing or eliminating runway dependence, as well as ease of operating and maintainability, have emerged as key areas of interest when it comes to CCA-type drones.
“Our analysis aligns with the U.S. Air Force, that runway accessibility is incredibly important in every theater, particularly in INDOPACOM [the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command area of responsibility]. So we’re very intentional about the flexibility that this system would enable in the theaters of interest,” Sanchez explained. “And so the amount of runways that will be available, the amount of flexibility to implement, whether it be an Agile Combat Employment approach, or a hub and spoke for other countries, depending on how it is, Vectis will be very capable in those spaces.”
Agile Combat Employment (ACE) is the U.S. Air Force’s current umbrella term for its concepts for distributed and disaggregated operations, as you can read more about here. The service has said in the past that the Increment 1 CCAs are the first aircraft being designed from the ground up with ACE in mind.
“We certainly understand the flexibility the U.S. Air Force might need,” Sanchez added. “And if there are other solutions that are runway independent, we would be working with them on those, but this one would be a runway-dependent solution.”
“The importance of sustainability, of reliability, and the ability to easily maintain a survivable airplane is paramount. So we have absolutely baked that into this approach, and I would tell you that we have, for a while, into our advanced systems,” he continued. “We’re leveraging both on the material side as well as just the simplicity of design, where important systems that you might be able to access are, how you get to them, and durable, reliable materials that enable much simpler maintainability. So we will be targeting a very high reliability rate and have it first and foremost, both the operations as well as our maintainers in mind to provide that operational flexibility.”
The head of Skunk Works was also asked about how Vectis might fit into concepts of operations wherein much of a CCA fleet might be kept in storage rather than being flown on a more day-to-day basis, including in routine training. As TWZ has noted many times in the past, the U.S. military, broadly, still has many questions to answer about how CCA-type drones will be deployed, launched, recovered, supported, and otherwise operated, as well as employed tactically.
“If you ask me, I think the ability … for folks to be able to train and integrate is going to be important in the CCA space. So we will have built into it [Vectis] the ability for it to be a daily flyer, reliably work alongside its crewed teammates to be able to integrate into operations for training, as well as for deployment,” Sanchez said. “At the same time, if the requirement is ease of storage and ease of assembly, it’s absolutely built into the design. So we would see that as an operations-defined design trade, as opposed necessarily to one that would be limited by what we’re presenting here. So that’s where we’ll work closely to listen with any individual customers that go from there on their operations choice, but the flexibility is built in.”
Vectis’ emergence comes amid a growing field of CCA-type drones in the United States and elsewhere globally that already reflect a number of different underlying force design concepts. Though the U.S. military continues to eschew more exquisite uncrewed combat air vehicles (UCAV), at least publicly, interest in designs in that category is also growing worldwide among American allies and partners. As TWZ has reported multiple times just in the past week, China has increasingly positioned itself as the dominant actor in the stealthy flying wing UCAV space, as well as a leader in advanced drone developments more broadly. Russia, India, Turkey, and France are also pursuing flying wing UCAVs.
Lockheed Martin has itself talked for years now about visions for future advanced drones and crewed-uncrewed teaming that include many different tiers of capability. Vectis is certainly not the only drone design the company is working on. Sanchez highlighted this past week that roughly 97 percent of what Skunk Works does is classified. On the other hand, the public disclosure of Vectis makes clear that the company sees this as an important play in the expanding CCA market space.
“We’re in progress now on the Vectis prototype. Parts are ordered, the team is in [sic] work, and we intend to fly in the next two years,” Sanchez said. “Our operational analysis shows a wide swath of capability that Vectis provides in multiple mission areas that are going to be relevant and solve hard problems that we couldn’t solve without this kind of collaboration. So we’ll continue to evolve that.”
“As things change, we’ll make changes. We’re not afraid to do that, and this shows that evolution of thought and adaptation to the mission needs,” he added.
It will be interesting to see how the development of Vectis now proceeds, especially within the larger and still evolving CCA space globally.
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