Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works displayed a full-scale model of its updated Vectis collaborative combat aircraft, alongside an announcement that it will build four additional prototypes on top of the one already under construction, bringing the total to five. The updated design is a tailless lambda-wing Group 5 UAS roughly 10.5 m (34 ft) long with an 11.5 m (38 ft) wingspan, powered by a Williams International FJ44 engine and featuring a top-mounted embedded air intake aimed at reducing radar signature. Autonomy runs on Lockheed's MDCX command-and-control platform, the same stack that has flown the US Navy's MQ-25 Stingray, and Vectis is designed to fly solo or as a wingman for the F-35 and F-22 across precision strike, ISR targeting, electronic warfare, and offensive and defensive counter-air missions. Ron Fehlen, VP and general manager of Skunk Works, said the first prototype remains on track for its first flight by the end of 2027, and Lockheed says it moved from initial concept drawing to wind-tunnel testing in under two months and completed the initial digital build in six.

The Read: The programme is self-funded, and that is the news that matters. Lockheed lost CCA Increment 1 to General Atomics' YFQ-42A and Anduril's YFQ-44A in June, kept only one of six slots in the pool competing to supply Increment 1 autonomy software, and has now decided to build five stealth CCAs on its own dime while pitching them to allied customers. That is a very different signal from a contractor waiting for a follow-on procurement window: it is the prime that built the F-117, SR-71, and F-35 telling the market it will bring a survivable CCA to service whether the USAF Increment 2 contest picks it or not. The reveal also broadens the global CCA map another notch further, alongside Brontanax in the UK, A3-001 in Sweden, K-SWARM's Kizilelma in the Italy-Turkey partnership, MQ-28 Ghost Bat in Australia, and Anduril's Thunder tiltrotor for helicopters. Vectis is the American incumbent's counter-move inside its own home market: a stealth-first Skunk Works product built for the F-35 and next-generation family of systems that Increment 1 does not currently include, at a development tempo Lockheed is now trying to price into the CCA race before allied budgets close.

Swarm Aero unveiled Gamera at the Air, Space & Cyber conference on September 14, presenting a full-scale model of a twin-fuselage, twin-boom uncrewed aircraft pitched into the same Massed Modular Aircraft (MMA) programme that General Atomics' Wildfire is chasing. Gamera has a 22 m (72 ft) wingspan, a claimed unrefueled range of 9,000 nautical miles (16,668 km), and a payload of over 1,270 kg (2,800 lb) distributed across seven hardpoints, powered by a single Honeywell TPE331 turboprop mounted between the twin fuselages with a tractor propeller ahead of the wing. Configurations shown include LRASM and JASSM-ER on the centerline hardpoint, Hellfire and JAGM strike loads, AIM-9X air-to-air fits, and podded ISR, electronic warfare, and communications relay payloads, with Swarm Aero's Legion command-and-control autonomy software integrated for one-operator control of multiple aircraft. The company, which developed Gamera largely in secret over roughly five years, claims the platform delivers long-range standoff strike at roughly one-tenth the cost-per-effect of legacy platforms and is now the second publicly-disclosed candidate for the MMA programme after Wildfire.

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