F-22 Pilot Controls Drone Wingman from Cockpit in First-of-Its-Kind Demo
In a groundbreaking test, a U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor pilot directly controlled an MQ-20 Avenger drone from the fighter’s cockpit, General Atomics (GA) announced in a press release on Monday.
GA said the Oct. 21 demonstration at Nevada’s Test and Training Range “successfully demonstrated crewed-uncrewed teaming.”
“Through the Pilot Vehicle Interface tablet and the F‑22’s GRACE module, the system provided end‑to‑end communications, enabling the F‑22 command and control of the MQ‑20 in flight,” the press release says.
“The collaborative demonstration showcased non-proprietary, U.S. government-owned communications capabilities and the ability to fly, transition, and re-fly flight hardware that is core to the Open Mission Systems and skills based unmanned autonomy ecosystem,” it added.
Alongside Anduril, GA is under contract for the first phase of the U.S. Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft program, which envisions manned fighters operating drone wingmen as demonstrated in the MQ-20 test.
The U.S. Air Force announced in May that it has begun ground testing two new wingmen drones under its CCA program. The testing phase includes comprehensive evaluations of the YFQ-44A and YFQ-42A production-representative test vehicles, developed by Anduril and GA, respectively.
