Northrop Grumman’s YFQ-48A Talon Blue Collaborative Combat Aircraft recently completed its first fully autonomous flight.
Talon Blue executed its first fully autonomous flight in Mojave, California, which included taxi, takeoff, in-flight maneuvers and landing, according to a recent company release.
The modular design, part of the defense company’s internally funded Project Talon portfolio, focuses on advancing manufacturing to lower cost and speed production without decreasing mission capability, per the statement.
Upgrades to manufacturing and design decreased part count and overall weight, which lowered the cost and increased the production timeline to meet the demand for autonomous systems.
“Our customers made it clear they need autonomous systems that can be fielded faster and more affordably without sacrificing mission effectiveness. We listened,” Craig Woolston, vice president and general manager of research and advanced design at Northrop Grumman, said in the release.
“Talon Blue’s first flight is one step toward a new generation of autonomous capabilities,” he continued. “Every flight and lesson strengthens our broader autonomy work and sharpens what comes next.”
The announcement came just weeks after U.S. Air Force officials announced their intention to have 500 autonomous aircraft in service by 2032.
Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink released the names of Anduril’s FQ-44A and General Atomics’s FQ-42A to be dubbed “Fury” and “Vengeance,” respectively. Production contracts for the two companies were awarded in June, a month before Anduril completed its first-ever live-fire test. General Atomics intends to have its live-fire testing this fall.
The Air Force has not awarded Northrop Grumman a contract for CCAs yet, but the company is included in the service’s baseline contract pool for mission autonomy software production.
The service chose six vendors in June for the software’s performance-based competition for Increment 1 with the aim of selecting one by summer 2027.
Cristina Stassis is a reporter covering stories surrounding the defense industry, national security, military/veteran affairs and more. She previously worked as an editorial fellow for Defense News in 2024 where she assisted the newsroom in breaking news across Sightline Media Group.
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