U.S. Lockheed Martin Unveils Vectis Unmanned Combat Aircraft to Team With Poland F-35A Fighter Jets.

American Company Lockheed Martin’s Vectis autonomous combat aircraft could give Poland’s F-35A Husarz stealth fighters additional weapons, sensors, and electronic warfare capacity for missions against heavily defended airspace, a concept highlighted by the Vectis scale model displayed at the MSPO 2026 defense exhibition in Kielce, Poland. The design could allow Polish fifth-generation fighters to push deeper into contested areas while distributing risk and combat power across crewed and uncrewed aircraft.

Developed by Skunk Works for independent operations or teaming with aircraft such as the F-35 fighter jet, Vectis is intended to combine strike, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, electronic warfare and counter-air missions with a strong focus on survivability. With first flight targeted for 2027, the program reflects the accelerating shift toward autonomous combat aircraft as force multipliers for future high-intensity air warfare.

Related Topic: U.S. Lockheed Martin Skunk Works unveils Vectis stealth drone for future air combat

Scale model of Lockheed Martin’s Vectis unmanned autonomous combat aircraft displayed at the company’s booth during MSPO 2026 in Kielce, Poland. (Picture source: Army Recognition)

Lockheed Martin's display of the Vectis unmanned combat aircraft at MSPO 2026 is particularly relevant for Poland, as it builds a fleet of 32 F-35A fighter jets and moves toward a combat architecture increasingly based on stealth, sensor fusion, and networked targeting. Rather than simply adding another unmanned aircraft to a formation, Vectis is intended to extend the combat radius and mission capacity of crewed fighters by allowing sensors, weapons, and electronic warfare functions to be distributed across several aircraft, potentially enabling Polish F-35As to remain farther from the densest enemy air defenses while autonomous aircraft move forward into higher-risk areas.

Lockheed Martin publicly unveiled Vectis on September 21, 2025, as a Group 5 Collaborative Combat Aircraft developed by Skunk Works for U.S. and allied forces. Development was already underway when the design was revealed, with parts ordered and company funding committed to an aggressive design-build-fly schedule. Lockheed Martin describes Vectis as a clean-sheet, internally funded design intended to combine high-end survivability with affordability and open-system architecture, with the company aiming to move from development to flight within about two years. In December 2025, Lockheed Martin selected the Williams International FJ44-4 turbofan for the prototype, which provides more than 3,600 pounds of thrust and reduces propulsion risk as the program advances toward its planned 2027 first flight.

Vectis's operational value lies in its ability to perform missions that would otherwise require additional crewed fighters or expose them to greater risk. Lockheed Martin says the aircraft is intended for precision strike, ISR targeting, electronic warfare, and offensive and defensive counter-air operations, while also providing multi-domain connectivity and extended endurance compatible with European and other major theaters. Its tailless configuration and blended shaping reflect a strong emphasis on low observability, although Lockheed Martin has not disclosed radar-cross-section data, maximum speed, combat radius, or internal weapons capacity.

For Poland, this mission set is directly relevant to the threat environment on NATO’s eastern flank. In a conflict involving Russian integrated air defenses, Polish F-35As could face overlapping surface-to-air missile coverage, fighter patrols, electronic warfare and long-range sensors intended to detect and engage aircraft before they reach priority targets. A survivable autonomous aircraft operating ahead of the F-35 formation could search for radar emitters, contribute targeting data, perform electronic attack, carry additional weapons, or create alternative attack axes, increasing the number of problems an air-defense network has to solve simultaneously.

This could also help preserve the F-35’s internal weapons capacity. Because stealth aircraft depend on carrying weapons internally when operating in the highest-threat environments, available magazine depth can become a limiting factor during sustained operations. If Vectis can carry weapons or mission systems while maintaining a useful degree of survivability, it could add additional effectors to the formation without forcing the F-35 to sacrifice low observability by relying on external stores.

The same logic applies to reconnaissance and electronic warfare. A Vectis operating forward of a Polish F-35 could potentially collect sensor data, provoke enemy radars into emitting, locate air-defense elements or support jamming missions while the crewed fighter remains at a more favorable distance. The F-35 could then use its own sensor fusion and networking capability to combine information from multiple sources, turning a small number of fighters into the command and targeting core of a larger distributed formation.

This is where Vectis differs in emphasis from the first wave of U.S. Air Force Collaborative Combat Aircraft now moving toward production. The Air Force selected General Atomics’ YFQ-42A and Anduril’s YFQ-44 for CCA Increment 1, with both designs intended to provide affordable semi-autonomous combat mass alongside crewed aircraft. In June 2026, the Air Force awarded engineering, manufacturing development, and production contracts for both aircraft, underscoring its priority on rapidly fielding scalable unmanned combat capability.

Vectis is not part of that initial Increment 1 production decision, but Lockheed Martin is positioning it toward the higher-survivability end of the CCA spectrum. While the YFQ-42 and YFQ-44 are being advanced as affordable semi-autonomous fighters designed to increase force size and weapons capacity, Vectis places greater public emphasis on stealth, penetration, and mission flexibility. Lockheed Martin explicitly markets the design as offering best-in-class CCA survivability and says it is intended to operate in the most challenging environments, suggesting a potential role in missions closer to sophisticated air-defense systems than less survivable autonomous aircraft might be expected to perform.

That difference is strategically important because future air forces are unlikely to rely on a single type of Collaborative Combat Aircraft. One class may prioritize lower cost, weapons carriage and numerical mass, while another may require greater survivability for reconnaissance, electronic warfare, suppression of enemy air defenses or strike missions deeper inside contested airspace. Vectis appears intended to compete for this second category, where the aircraft must be affordable enough to field in useful numbers but capable enough to survive alongside fifth-generation fighters.

Poland’s F-35 acquisition makes that concept particularly relevant. Warsaw signed its contract for 32 F-35As in January 2020 as part of a broader effort to replace older combat aircraft and strengthen NATO’s airpower on the eastern flank. The F-35 gives Poland a fifth-generation capability built around low observability, advanced sensors and secure data-sharing, but the number of fighters remains limited compared with the scale of the air and missile threat that could emerge during a major conflict. Autonomous combat aircraft offer one possible way to increase the effective size of that force without purchasing an equivalent number of additional crewed fighters.

A mixed formation could therefore see a smaller number of F-35As directing or cooperating with several autonomous aircraft carrying sensors, electronic warfare payloads or weapons. This would increase the number of targets that can be detected, tracked or attacked while complicating an adversary’s targeting problem. Rather than facing only a few high-value crewed fighters, an enemy air-defense network would have to account for multiple low-observable autonomous aircraft approaching from different directions and performing different tasks.

Such an approach could be particularly useful during the opening phase of a conflict, when Russian long-range surface-to-air missile systems and associated radars would represent a major obstacle to NATO air operations. Vectis could potentially contribute to finding or suppressing those defenses, either by collecting emissions, conducting electronic warfare, carrying weapons or forcing enemy systems to reveal their positions. The purpose would not necessarily be to replace the F-35 in penetrating missions, but to increase the number of survivable assets available to support it.

The economic case is equally important. Poland is already investing heavily in F-35 acquisition, infrastructure, pilot training and long-term sustainment, making a large expansion of the crewed fighter fleet expensive. Lockheed Martin says Vectis is being engineered for affordability and will be offered at a CCA-level price point, though it has not disclosed a unit cost. If it can achieve that objective, autonomous aircraft could give F-35 operators additional combat mass without creating the same pilot-training and support burden as another full fighter squadron.

The challenge will be balancing cost with survivability. A Collaborative Combat Aircraft that becomes too expensive risks undermining the central advantage of unmanned combat mass, while an aircraft that is too inexpensive and insufficiently survivable may have limited usefulness against sophisticated defenses. Vectis is effectively Lockheed Martin’s attempt to occupy the middle ground: sufficiently affordable to be fielded in numbers, but survivable enough to accompany fifth-generation fighters into contested airspace.

The 2027 first flight will be the program’s next major test. Flight trials must demonstrate aerodynamic performance, propulsion, autonomy, communications, and mission-system integration before Vectis can move from an internally funded Skunk Works demonstrator to a more mature operational design. Lockheed Martin has also emphasized open architectures and compatibility with common command-and-control approaches, indicating that the company wants the aircraft to remain adaptable to U.S. and allied requirements as Collaborative Combat Aircraft concepts evolve.

No Polish procurement decision for Vectis has been announced, and its appearance at MSPO 2026 should not be interpreted as evidence that Warsaw has selected the aircraft. The Kielce display matters more for the capability discussion it opens for a country already adopting the F-35 and sitting directly on NATO’s eastern flank.

For Poland, the question is increasingly not only how many F-35As it can field, but how much combat effect those fighters can generate when connected to additional autonomous sensors, weapons and electronic warfare assets. If Vectis reaches its planned 2027 first flight and proves that Lockheed Martin can combine stealth, autonomy, useful payload, and affordability, the aircraft could offer F-35 operators a way to push weapons and sensors deeper toward hostile air defenses while keeping more pilots and high-value crewed fighters outside the most dangerous engagement zones.

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Written by Alain Servaes – Chief Editor, Army Recognition Group
Alain Servaes is a former infantry non-commissioned officer and the founder of Army Recognition. With over 20 years in defense journalism, he provides expert analysis on military equipment, NATO operations, and the global defense industry.