Lockheed Martin’s F-22 Takes the Lead Over a Wingman Drone

Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works engineering team knocked it out of the park earlier this month. An F-22 Raptor hurtling through the Nevada sky at breakneck speeds was communicating with an unmanned drone from inside the cockpit. The pilot flew the fighter with ease, commanding the drone’s motions from the plane’s seat. This test flight was a first for a fifth-generation aircraft, since it seized full control of a loyal wingman while still airborne.

The F-22 Raptor has always been a powerful beast, capable of reaching Mach 2 speeds and slipping past radar with ease due to its stealth qualities. It is a single-seat interceptor that conducts dogfights and deep strikes like it is nothing. But this time, the Raptor took on a new duty. A pilot sat in the cockpit, tethered to a Collaborative Combat Aircraft, a drone built to take human directions. These CCAs carry guns, conduct advance scouting, and disrupt enemy communications, but they only remain on mission when the pilot makes the judgments. The connection occurred in the middle of flight, while both machines were rapidly gaining speed.

To make this handoff work, engineers devised something called the Pilot Vehicle Interface. The PVI is just a screen and various knobs on the F-22’s dash that allow the pilot to give the drone directions. The drone answers as fast as light. There is no finicky micromanagement on our hands; instead, the pilot keeps an eye on the operation while the drone handles all of the little elements such as wind and potential hazards on its own. During the test, the pilot presented the mission plan to the CCA, watched it unfold, and then jumped in to make a few changes. It worked perfectly, and everything remained in rhythm even as they flew at great speeds.

This has been years in the works; Lockheed has been working on drone teaming for the F-22 and F-35 since the early 2020s, conducting ground simulations and short hops to iron out the bugs. The Air Force’s Next Generation Air Dominance program has hastened this process by combining human and unmanned aircraft. Cost is a major consideration here. A CCA is around one-third the cost of a full fighter to buy and fly, so you can be more irresponsible. Consider swarms of these drones taking hits or attracting fire, while the Raptor sits back and calls the shots. They nailed it in this test, demonstrating how one pilot can manage many assets while remaining focused on the combat.

When you scale it up, the battleground becomes larger. The Air Force intends to deploy approximately 1,000 CCAs to support 500 manned fifth and sixth-generation jets. Pilots take on quarterback roles, commanding drone waves to overwhelm the enemy or scout for vulnerabilities. Humans take fewer risks because machines take the hits. Lockheed’s test falls neatly into that category, validating the PVI for general usage. Future tests could include more drones or more extreme circumstances, such as avoiding missiles and coordinating strikes. Each stage sharpens and pushes us closer to jet and drone squadrons.
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