Lockheed Martin Unveils First Full-Scale Model of U.S. Vectis Stealth Drone to Fly with F-35 Fighter Jets.

American Company Lockheed Martin has publicly unveiled a full-scale model of its Vectis stealth combat drone at the AFA 2026 Air, Space & Cyber Conference in Maryland, offering the clearest look yet at a Skunk Works aircraft designed to operate alongside F-35s and other advanced fighters. The program aims to give crewed formations more survivable sensors, weapons, and autonomous combat mass for missions inside increasingly contested airspace.

Vectis is being developed as a low-observable uncrewed combat aircraft that can extend sensing, targeting, and strike options without placing additional pilots at risk. Its emergence reflects the U.S. shift toward teaming stealth fighters with autonomous aircraft to increase force capacity, complicate enemy air defenses, and improve survivability in high-end combat.

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

Lockheed Martin unveils a full-scale model of its Vectis stealth combat drone at the 2026 Air, Space & Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Maryland. The Skunk Works design is intended to operate alongside F-35 fighters and other advanced combat aircraft in contested airspace. (Picture source: Lockheed Martin)

American Company Lockheed Martin presented the Vectis on September 14, 2026, on the opening day of the conference, which runs through September 16, 2026, as the U.S. Air Force expands work on Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) intended to extend the reach, flexibility, and lethality of crewed fighters through human-machine teaming.

Vectis's operational relevance is particularly clear in the Indo-Pacific, where U.S. forces must operate across vast distances while facing China’s increasingly dense combination of long-range surface-to-air missiles, advanced fighters, airborne surveillance aircraft, electronic warfare systems, and long-range sensors. A low-observable unmanned combat aircraft that can move forward with F-35 formations could distribute sensors and weapons across more aircraft while reducing the number of pilots who must enter the most heavily defended parts of the battlespace. In a Western Pacific conflict, Vectis could give commanders additional aircraft to place ahead of, beside or around crewed fighters, expanding the number of sensors and potential weapon carriers an adversary must detect, classify and engage.

Lockheed Martin Skunk Works first disclosed Vectis in 2025 as an internally funded Group 5 uncrewed aircraft intended for U.S. and allied requirements. The company is pursuing an aggressive design-build-fly schedule and plans to conduct the first flight in 2027, with the initial prototype powered by a Williams International FJ44-4 turbofan producing more than 3,600 pounds of thrust. The full-scale model displayed at AFA 2026 moves Vectis beyond the computer-generated imagery that accompanied its initial disclosure and gives military officials a more tangible indication of the aircraft Lockheed Martin intends to fly, while placing the design directly in front of U.S. Air Force decision-makers as the service determines how different classes of autonomous combat aircraft could complement the F-35, F-22 and future fighter force.

Survivability is central to that proposition. Unlike unmanned aerial vehicles developed primarily for permissive or moderately contested environments, Vectis is being positioned for missions in which hostile fighters and integrated air-defense systems remain active. Reduced observability could let the aircraft move deeper into defended airspace to search for threats, collect targeting information, support electronic attack, or carry weapons without exposing another crewed fighter. Lockheed Martin has designed Vectis to operate independently or in cooperation with fifth-generation and future combat aircraft, and the F-35 connection is especially important because the company already builds the fighter and has extensive experience with its mission systems, sensors and networked combat concept.

A Vectis operating as an F-35 drone wingman could potentially move farther forward for reconnaissance, targeting, electronic warfare or weapons employment while the crewed fighter maintains greater separation from the highest-risk threat zones. The aircraft is intended to support precision strike, electronic warfare, offensive and defensive counter-air operations, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR). Rather than reproducing every F-35 capability in a second aircraft, the concept distributes selected mission functions across multiple autonomous aircraft and increases the formation's overall combat power. That approach also complicates the targeting problem for an adversary, because even a Vectis configured primarily as a sensor, jammer or decoy could consume enemy radar capacity, missile resources and command attention.

Vectis enters a collaborative combat aircraft market in which Boeing’s MQ-28A Ghost Bat already has a significant advantage in flight-test maturity. Developed with the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), the MQ-28A has progressed from autonomous flight demonstrations to weapons employment and, in December 2025, successfully launched an AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile against an airborne target while operating with an E-7A Wedgetail and F/A-18F Super Hornet. The comparison highlights the two aircraft's different positions: the MQ-28A has already demonstrated crewed-uncrewed teaming and live air-to-air weapons employment, while Vectis remains on track for its planned first flight in 2027. Lockheed Martin’s potential differentiator is its emphasis on low observability, survivability and integration with F-35 operations, particularly if future requirements demand an autonomous aircraft capable of operating deeper inside sophisticated enemy air-defense networks.

Vectis must also be viewed against the U.S. Air Force’s existing CCA program, not as a direct replacement. General Atomics’ YFQ-42A and Anduril’s YFQ-44A are already undergoing Air Force testing, giving the service practical experience with semi-autonomous aircraft, weapons integration and forward operations, while the YFQ-44A reached an important milestone in July 2026 when it launched an AIM-120 during a live-fire test over the Mojave Desert. The YFQ-42A and YFQ-44A have also moved into operational experimentation intended to validate reduced logistics requirements for dispersed operations, a key issue for the Indo-Pacific where autonomous combat aircraft may need to operate from austere locations with smaller maintenance and support teams.

That means Vectis could compete for a different portion of the future CCA force structure rather than simply challenge the current Increment 1 designs. The Air Force is increasingly treating CCA as an ecosystem in which different aircraft could prioritize range, payload, affordability, electronic warfare, or survivability. A more penetrating Vectis could therefore complement less expensive autonomous aircraft optimized for missions closer to friendly forces, while its low-observable design could make it more relevant for operations against China’s advanced air-defense network.

Affordability remains critical because CCA's military value depends heavily on numbers. Vectis is not intended to duplicate an F-35 at a lower price; it must provide enough survivability, autonomy and mission capability to justify operating alongside one while remaining inexpensive enough to purchase in substantially greater quantities. Lockheed Martin says it is using digital engineering, mature propulsion and advanced manufacturing techniques to pursue aggressive cost and development targets. The MQ-28A illustrates the importance of this balance, as Australia has articulated a future force concept involving multiple uncrewed aircraft supporting each crewed combat aircraft, allowing commanders to distribute sensing, weapons and operational risk across a much larger formation.

For Lockheed Martin, the next decisive milestone is the transition from the full-scale Vectis model shown at AFA 2026 to a flying prototype. Flight testing will have to demonstrate aerodynamic performance, autonomous mission execution, resilient communications and effective integration with crewed combat aircraft under realistic operational conditions. The timing of the unveiling is therefore significant: AFA’s 2026 conference focuses on strengthening future air and space dominance, placing Vectis directly in the broader U.S. debate over how rapidly the Air Force can generate more survivable, distributed, and affordable combat power.

Lockheed Martin’s full-scale Vectis unveiling represents more than the visual debut of another experimental unmanned aircraft. It shows how Skunk Works intends to compete in an emerging class of stealth combat drones designed to extend the reach and lethality of crewed fighters while presenting advanced air-defense networks with more targets, sensors and potential weapon carriers. If Lockheed Martin can combine low observability, autonomous mission capability, F-35 integration and an affordable production model, Vectis could become particularly relevant to a U.S. strategy focused on penetrating China’s increasingly capable air-defense environment while multiplying what each F-35 formation can see, carry and threaten.

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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.