U.S. Navy Reveals 463-km AIM-424 Malice Missile for F-35C Super Hornet and Future F/A-XX Fighter Jets.

The U.S. Navy has unveiled the Raytheon AIM-424 Malice, a new long-range air-to-air missile designed to extend the defensive reach of U.S. carrier aviation, according to a disclosure published on August 22, 2026. With an officially stated range exceeding 463 km (250 nautical miles), the missile is intended to let U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps fighters engage advanced airborne threats from much greater stand-off distances.

The Malice missile could give carrier air wings more room to intercept long-range bombers, airborne support aircraft, and missile-launch platforms before they can threaten the fleet. In a Pacific conflict, that added reach could help U.S. carriers disrupt coordinated air and missile attacks while keeping their fighters farther from heavily defended Chinese airspace.

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Four AIM-424 Long Range Air-to-Air Missiles are loaded onto a U.S. Navy F/A-18E Super Hornet for testing. The next-generation missile is designed to extend the engagement range, lethality, and defensive reach of Navy and Marine Corps aviation against advanced airborne threats. (Picture source: U.S. Department of War/Defense)

The AIM-424 was publicly revealed during the Tailhook Symposium in Reno, Nevada, where the U.S. Navy confirmed that the missile is already undergoing flight testing and is being developed for the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, the F-35C Lightning II, and the future F/A-XX carrier fighter. Its integration across fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-generation combat aircraft matters because it could let the carrier air wing establish a much wider defensive perimeter around U.S. naval forces while remaining compatible with both existing and future fighter fleets. The Navy describes Malice as a next-generation air-to-air missile designed to preserve a “first look, first shot, first kill” advantage. In practical terms, the weapon is intended to allow naval aviators to engage hostile fighters, bombers, and potentially high-value support aircraft before those threats can reach effective weapon-launch positions against a carrier strike group.

According to the U.S. Navy’s official specification sheet, the AIM-424 measures 13.5 feet, or 4.11 meters, in length and 13.5 inches, or 0.34 meters, in diameter, with a wingspan of 26.2 inches, or 0.67 meters. The missile weighs approximately 1,500 pounds, or 680 kg, and carries a blast-fragmentation warhead. A solid-propellant rocket motor powers it. Its disclosed range of more than 250 nautical miles (463 km) places Malice in a substantially different engagement class from conventional medium- and long-range fighter weapons such as the AIM-120 AMRAAM.

More importantly, that reach lets carrier aircraft shift air interception hundreds of kilometers away from the ships they protect, increasing the distance at which incoming raids can be disrupted and complicating an adversary’s ability to coordinate fighters, bombers, airborne early-warning aircraft, and long-range missile carriers. The missile’s size also indicates that the Navy is accepting significantly greater weapon mass in exchange for increased range and retained energy at long distances. At roughly 680 kg, the AIM-424 is about three times as heavy as an AIM-120, giving designers more internal volume for propulsion, fuel, guidance equipment, and a larger warhead while still remaining compatible with tactical aircraft.

One of the most operationally important details released by the U.S. Navy is the AIM-424’s integration with the F-35C’s internal weapons bay. An official U.S. Navy image dated August 1, 2026, shows an AIM-424 installed internally in an F-35C while an AIM-120 is carried on a weapons-bay door station, demonstrating that the stealth fighter can combine an extreme-range missile with a conventional air-to-air weapon without relying entirely on external carriage. Internal carriage is particularly important in a high-threat environment because external weapons increase an aircraft’s radar signature and can reduce the survivability advantages of the F-35C. Carrying Malice internally would let the aircraft penetrate or operate close to contested airspace, exploit its sensors and low-observable characteristics, and launch a long-range interceptor before an adversary can reliably detect or target it.

The U.S. Navy has also released imagery showing an F/A-18 Super Hornet assigned to Air Test and Evaluation Squadron 23 (VX-23) carrying four AIM-424 missiles during testing. That configuration suggests the weapon is not being designed solely as a specialized F-35C munition, but as a fleet-wide air-combat capability that could give existing Super Hornet squadrons a major increase in engagement reach. For carrier air wings, combining the Super Hornet’s payload capacity with the F-35C’s low observability and advanced sensors could create a distributed long-range engagement architecture. An F-35C operating forward could detect or classify a target and contribute targeting information, while a Super Hornet positioned farther from the threat could carry a larger missile load, reducing the requirement for every aircraft participating in the kill chain to expose itself equally.

The AIM-424 will also coexist with the U.S. Navy’s AIM-174B Gunslinger, an air-launched derivative of the SM-6 already carried by the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. The AIM-174B weighs about 1,830 pounds and uses the SM-6’s active radar seeker, giving naval aviation another very-long-range air-intercept capability, although the Navy continues to classify its operational range. Malice appears to address a different integration requirement because it can fit inside the F-35C while remaining substantially smaller than the AIM-174B. This could give commanders a layered long-range air-to-air inventory in which the larger AIM-174B provides specialized reach from externally armed Super Hornets, while the AIM-424 delivers a combination of very long range, broad fighter compatibility, and stealthy internal carriage.

The U.S. Navy has not publicly disclosed the AIM-424’s guidance architecture, seeker configuration, datalink arrangement, or detailed propulsion cycle. Contemporary reporting on the Tailhook disclosure describes the missile as a two-stage design, although the U.S. Navy’s public fact file identifies its propulsion more generally as a solid-propellant rocket motor. Accordingly, detailed conclusions about its internal configuration should remain provisional until additional technical information is released.

A missile capable of engagements beyond 463 kilometers also depends heavily on off-board sensing and networked targeting because the launching fighter may not independently detect or continuously track targets at the weapon’s maximum range. Its military value will therefore be closely tied to the U.S. Navy’s broader airborne and maritime sensor network, including F-35C sensors, E-2D Advanced Hawkeye airborne early-warning aircraft, surface combatants, and other joint assets that can contribute targeting data. That networked approach is becoming increasingly important as potential adversaries field longer-range anti-ship missiles and supporting aircraft designed to attack carrier groups without entering traditional fighter-interception zones.

Extending the air-to-air engagement boundary outward gives U.S. fighters a greater opportunity to destroy missile-carrying aircraft before they release their weapons, rather than relying primarily on shipboard defenses to defeat missiles after launch. The development therefore complements the U.S. Navy’s broader effort to enlarge the defensive and offensive radius of the carrier strike group while giving naval aviation a more direct role in fleet-level air defense at ranges once associated mainly with surface combatants.

Malice could also become particularly important against airborne early-warning and command aircraft, aerial refueling tankers, and other support aircraft whose destruction could reduce the effectiveness of an entire opposing air operation. Even when such aircraft remain outside the missile’s final engagement envelope, forcing them farther from contested airspace could shorten fighter endurance, reduce radar coverage, and weaken the coordination of long-range strikes. For the F/A-XX program, integrating the AIM-424 from the outset would help ensure that the Navy’s future carrier fighter enters service with an established extreme-range weapon rather than having to wait for a new missile-development cycle. That approach would more closely integrate aircraft, sensor, and weapons development and could allow the F/A-XX to exploit longer-range sensing and networking capabilities immediately upon entering operational service.

Raytheon’s identification as the AIM-424 contractor also places the program within a U.S. industrial base already producing several major Navy missile families. The Navy has not yet disclosed production quantities, unit costs, initial operational capability dates, or a procurement schedule, so the scale and pace at which Malice could enter frontline inventories remain important unanswered questions. Those production factors will matter because extreme-range air combat requires sufficient missile inventory depth, not merely exceptional performance from individual weapons. A carrier air wing able to launch long-range interceptors in meaningful numbers could threaten successive waves of hostile aircraft, whereas limited inventories would force commanders to reserve the weapon for only the highest-value targets.

The AIM-424 disclosure also reflects the accelerating competition in long-range air-to-air warfare as the United States prepares for operations against adversaries equipped with increasingly capable missiles and sophisticated airborne sensor networks. By combining a range exceeding 250 nautical miles with F-35C internal carriage and compatibility with the Super Hornet and future F/A-XX, the AIM-424 could materially change how U.S. carrier groups establish air superiority. Instead of waiting for hostile aircraft to penetrate toward the fleet, Navy fighters could attempt to disrupt enemy air operations much farther from the carrier by targeting the aircraft and support systems that enable long-range missile attacks.

The strategic effect is therefore greater than the missile’s maximum range alone would suggest. If the U.S. Navy can integrate Malice effectively with distributed sensors and procure it in sufficient numbers, the weapon could expand the carrier strike group’s defensive depth, increase the survivability of naval aviation, and impose a larger exclusion zone on hostile air forces. In doing so, it could strengthen U.S. deterrence by making coordinated attacks against naval forces harder to organize and far more dangerous to execute.

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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.