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The US Air Force, in partnership with Lockheed Martin, General Atomics and L3Harris, has successfully completed a manned-unmanned teaming demonstration, pairing an F-22 Raptor and an MQ-20 Avenger in a milestone for Collaborative Combat Aircraft integration.
Lockheed Martin’s famed Skunk Works division, working alongside industry partners and the United States Air Force, has successfully demonstrated the ability for a pilot of a fifth-generation fighter jet to control an unmanned aircraft while in flight.
The trial, conducted out of Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, saw an F-22 Raptor pilot use an open-architecture interface in the cockpit to issue real-time commands to an MQ-20 Avenger unmanned aerial system flying nearby. It marks one of the clearest demonstrations to date of “crewed-uncrewed teaming”, a core ambition of future US airpower.
OJ Sanchez, vice-president and general manager of Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, said the test underscored a major shift in how air combat would be fought.
“This effort represents Skunk Works driving a breakthrough in air combat capability, where single-seat aircraft command and control drones with simple and intuitive interfaces in the cockpit,” he said.
Using a pilot vehicle interface (PVI), essentially a tablet-like system integrated with the F-22’s existing mission systems, the Raptor pilot directed the MQ-20 through a specific mission profile. The PVI is designed as a flexible, plug-and-play control system that can be adapted to both current and future aircraft.
The demonstration also relied on L3Harris Technologies’ BANSHEE advanced tactical datalinks and Pantera software-defined radios. One of the radios was installed aboard the MQ-20, with another fitted to the F-22. Via the PVI and the F-22’s GRACE module, the two aircraft maintained continuous end-to-end communications throughout the trial, allowing the fighter pilot to command and monitor the drone in real time.
The companies emphasised that the datalink architecture used in the test was non-proprietary and government-owned, an important factor as the USAF moves towards open systems and modular payloads to avoid technological lock-in.
The event took place within the Nevada Test and Training Range and forms part of a longer series of self-funded industry trials designed to explore “the art of the possible” for mixed formations of crewed and uncrewed aircraft.
Both the USAF and major defence primes have been aggressively pursuing these capabilities as part of the Next Generation Air Dominance program and the emerging “family of systems” concept, which envisions fighters like the F-22 and F-35 working alongside autonomous “loyal wingmen”.
Human-machine teaming is expected to dramatically expand a pilot’s situational awareness, reduce workload, improve survivability, and enable distributed sensing and strike operations. The US sees it as essential to maintaining air superiority in heavily contested environments – particularly as China accelerates development of its own autonomous air capabilities.
Lockheed Martin has spent years experimenting with AI-enabled and autonomous systems to accompany its fifth-generation fighters. Both the F-22 and F-35 have been at the centre of this work, with the company viewing autonomous wingmen as an affordable way to expand firepower and mass without significantly increasing pilot numbers.
For the defence industry, the demonstration strengthens the case for open-architecture design and modular mission systems – principles also being adopted in Australian programs such as the MQ-28 Ghost Bat loyal wingman.
For the USAF, it represents a tangible step towards operationalising autonomous support aircraft in the coming decade. Industry partners said more complex demonstrations are already in planning, including multi-drone control, autonomous target engagement, and integration with other fifth-generation platforms.
Skunk Works characterised the event as a preview of air combat’s next chapter, saying, “By integrating the F-22 with other advanced systems, we’re bolstering the capabilities of our warfighters and ensuring American airpower dominance,” the company said.
