Lockheed Martin has announced a new autonomous drone called “Vectis.” It considers its Skunk Works Advanced Products Division to be a suitable sized platform for partnering with both air and naval crew fighters.
“Skunk Works is schematizing the key path to unlocking new integrated features at ultra-competitive speeds and prices with this Vectis program,” Skunk Works president OJ Sanchez told reporters at a September 16 briefing. He did not elaborate on what the unit cost of a Vectis is.
The new jet will fly within two years and not necessarily aim to increase two on the Air Force’s joint fighter program, but it will become a “great candidate” Sanchez said.
Similar to the drones selected for increment 1 in the CCA program, Vectis is a “Group 5” unmanned aerial system, classifying it as an aircraft weighing over 1,320 pounds and normally over 18,000 feet. Sanchez described the system as somewhere in the size between Lockheed’s new common multi-mission truck cruise missile and the F-16.
He refused to say what the Powerplant Vectis carries, but said drones could catch up with fifth-generation fighters, but “our operational analysis does not point to supersonic speeds.” Vectis’ signature and communications capabilities are “compatible with the fifth century and next-generation aircraft,” he added.
“We combined the F-22 and F-35 with Vectis to perform a classified crew/denunciation team and operational analyses. The results are impressive,” Sanchez argued. It’s rapidly upgradeable and customizable.
“Our work is perfectly in line with the US government’s reference architecture for both autonomous and mission systems,” he added. “The agreement on these approaches between services means that integration and interoperability can occur in all domains. Again, this is not about connecting the Lockheed Martin and Lockheed Martin systems. You can go back to other platforms.”
The Vectis artist concept released by Lockheed shows the Lambda Delta-Wing craft with dorsal air intake. The accompanying video shows a single F-22 that manages four Vectis crafts flying in front of the jet, detects enemy aerial targets, and fires missiles at the command of an F-22 pilot.
The Air Force has not publicly revealed plans for CCA increment 2, revealing the possibility that services want aircraft that are even less refined than increment 1 so that the Andrill Industry, the general atomic aviation system, or more complex platforms that allow more complex platforms to run more missions.
Lockheed was not successful in competing for increment 1 as he provided drones that were more capable than what the Air Force wanted. Similarly, the company was not selected for either the Air Force or Navy’s Next Generation Air Control Fighter Aircraft Program, but Sanchez said the knowledge gained when “built and fly” for the NGAD program “is driving progress beyond current and new initiatives.”
Vectis focuses on the long history of Skunk Works, with its cutting-edge crew and non-white four aircraft, and “a deliberate pathway to fostering advances to connect multi-domain systems through ongoing, intense experiments over 15 years,” Sanchez said. This connectivity, he argued, “supplements our efforts” from other autonomous aircraft approaches.
Sanchez describes Vectis as “survivable, deadly, and reusable” and has a high degree of autonomy to meet government standards. It will be runway-based, but will turn to field maintenance with high reliability and small footprints to align with the Air Force’s agile combat employment model, which operates from widely distributed and potentially strict locations. High reliability and ease of maintenance are “baked” and Lockheed can customize the aircraft either as “daily flyers” or as a boxed system that allows you to unpack and fly if necessary
The analysis leading to Vectis (which suggests “vectors” as well as “lover” latin) has been ongoing for some time, he said.
According to Skunk Works, the vehicle “grows from our own analysis, and then in partnerships we listen to our U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy and international partners. The jets are intended to be “no specific competition,” but they must be “very attractive for multiple mission problem sets,” and their payloads can be “adjusted to a specific country or program if necessary,” Sanchez said.
“Vectis provides us and Allied fighters with range, durability and flexibility in multiple missions, including in the air, air, surfaces, (intellectuality, surveillance, reconnaissance), as the future of air forms,” Sanchez said.
