General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc., (GA-ASI) has welcomed the February 17 announcement confirming that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) uncrewed air superiority system, known as LongShot, has received U.S. Air Force designation X-68A.
LongShot, a collaborative effort by DARPA and GA-ASI, is expected to fundamentally change air combat: it’s an uncrewed aircraft that flies from larger aircraft and engages hostile targets with its own air-to-air missiles. This approach augments traditional fighter aircraft, enabling them to remain further from the front lines, drastically increasing pilot safety while extending the overall force package’s reach and mission effectiveness.
DARPA commissioned GA-ASI to begin work on the platform and the agency said on February 17 that it has completed wind tunnel testing and other program milestones. The Air Force has awarded it an official experimental platform designation, X-68A, by which it will be known alongside its earlier codename.
The LongShot concept is intended to be host-platform agnostic, providing opportunities to integrate an operational variant onto fighters, bombers, or employed as a palletized munition from mobility aircraft. The program is building toward a flight test campaign as early as the end of this year. These tests will prove the safe and effective employment of the X-68A from an F-15 Eagle, confirm the flight worthiness of the LongShot vehicle, and demonstrate its ability to safely eject a captive sub-munition.
“We couldn’t be prouder of the great work being done at GA-ASI in support of this DARPA program,” said GA-ASI President David R. Alexander. “X-68A joins our growing fleet of advanced jet fighters, including the YFQ-42A Collaborative Combat Aircraft, and supports GA-ASI’s broader turn into supporting long-range strike, integrated autonomy, advanced sensing and other modern warfighting concepts.”
X-68A is GA-ASI’s second X-Plane, following the designation of the XQ-67A Off Board Sensing Station, an aircraft built for the U.S. Air Force Research Lab. It joins a growing fleet of advanced jet fighters, including the YFQ-42A Collaborative Combat Aircraft, and supports a broader turn by GA-ASI into supporting long-range strike, integrated autonomy, advanced sensing and other modern warfighting concepts.
The U.S. aerospace sector leads the world partly thanks to the tradition of collaboration between the government and its vendors on cutting-edge experimental aircraft, which is the origin of the Air Force’s “X” designation. For example, the X-1 was the first aircraft to break the speed of sound; the nimble X-31 demonstrated jet thrust vectoring; the X-47B was the first uncrewed jet to land on an aircraft carrier, and so on.
