Aviation News – A coalition of leading defense firms and military units has successfully completed a joint flight test demonstrating advanced Manned-Unmanned Teaming capabilities. The milestone exercise paired a human-piloted F-35 Lightning II fighter jet with an autonomous combat drone surrogate to validate future collaborative air combat operations.
The high-profile test brought together General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI), the F-35 Joint Program Office, the 309th Software Engineering Group, Lockheed Martin, Autonodyne, and the 461st and 370th Flight Test Squadrons. The selection of the MQ-20 Avenger as the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) surrogate highlights the defense sector’s urgent push to field loyal wingmen alongside crewed fighters. This development marks a critical step forward in a multi-year effort to integrate artificial intelligence and autonomous systems directly into the front lines of modern military aviation.
By bridging the gap between crewed stealth fighters and uncrewed platforms, the exercise establishes a new framework for distributed airpower. Developers built the testing architecture around open government standards to ensure rapid implementation and cross-platform compatibility. The successful integration of these systems follows months of simulated trials and software refinement, serving as a real-world validation of the military’s broader Collaborative Combat Aircraft development timeline.
The technical core of the demonstration relied on Beyond Line of Sight (BLOS) communications, enabling seamless coordination between an airborne MQ-20 and an F-35 parked on the ground. Utilizing a specialized cockpit tablet, the F-35 pilot successfully transmitted tactical autonomy commands directly to the drone via a proliferated low Earth orbit satellite data link. The uncrewed aircraft instantly processed these instructions through GA-ASI’s TacACE (Tactical Autonomy Ecosystem) software, a platform leveraging the latest Autonomy Government Reference Architecture to translate abstract pilot directives into real-time flight maneuvers.
