Lockheed Martin Vectis CCA

Lockheed Martin is doubling down on its internal investments for its Vectis stealth drone, announcing today that the company will build an additional four prototypes along with the one currently in production...Production of the first prototype is currently ongoing, with Lockheed showing reporters multiple photos of the airframe being assembled..
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Lockheed is targeting unit costs “to be [at] the CCA competitive price,” he said. (For the first increment of the CCA program, which was won by General Atomics and Anduril this year, the Air Force settled on a $20 million per aircraft cost target.)

With the full scale Vectis model clearly visible in the AFA exhibit hall, Lockheed is releasing several new technical specifications. The tailless aircraft is about 34 feet long, with a wingspan of about 38 feet, making it about as long as an MQ-9 Reaper with a similar wingspan of an F-35.
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https://breakingdefense.com/2026/09/lockheed-boosts-bet-on-skunk-works-vectis-stealth-drone/
 

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bring_it_on said:
https://breakingdefense.com/2026/09/lockheed-boosts-bet-on-skunk-works-vectis-stealth-drone/
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Great but this thing have no interest in the USAF inventory, All of the Skunkworks power for that realy Lockheed is in a bad shape , we still waiting their F-35 Ferrari.... It have nothing more than the Anduril or GA product. Saddly the glory of Skunkworks is gone, we still waiting the SR-72 ? Good new Northrop or Boeing will have the both futur fighters , and realy do you realy need Vectis when you have a multi mission B-21? More B-21 will have more fire power than the cost of a Vectis fleet for the same effect.
 
dark sidius said:
Great but this thing have no interest in the USAF inventory
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How do you know this? What has the service been signaling to its industrial base for future CCA increments? On which there are contracts currently being executed by something like half a dozen suppliers? Lockheed is not investing in five full scale Vectis air vehicles for fun and against the DAF and DOD's wishes to field anything like that in the future. Its a competitive environment but the move from a lower capability / lower cost CCA increment 1 to a higher performing highly survivable increments in the future is a pretty logical path. Simpler designs built around initial mission autonomy limitations validate and begin fielding the system while future designs offer better performance and growth opportunity once mission autonomy has had a few cycles of maturation and development. I bet Anduril, GA, Boeing and all others are probably also working on internal plans for higher performing CCA/ACPs to capture future CCA work.
 
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bring_it_on said:
How do you know this? What has the service been signaling to its industrial base for future CCA increments? On which there are contracts currently being executed by something like half a dozen suppliers? Lockheed is not investing in five full scale Vectis air vehicles for fun and against the DAF and DOD's wishes to field anything like that in the future. Its a competitive environment but the move from a lower capability / lower cost CCA increment 1 to a higher performing highly survivable increment is a pretty logical path. Simpler designs built around initial mission autonomy limitations validate and begin fielding the system while future designs offer better performance and growth opportunity once mission autonomy has had a few cycles of maturation and development. I bet Anduril, GA, Boeing and all others are probably also working on internal plans for higher performing CCA/ACPs to capture future CCA work.
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It is my opinion, Just the goal of the CCA is not to be a extensive fleet, I cant imagine Vectis being a low cost drone, is it realy the goal to put money in expensive drone when you have very long range missile and new stealth bomber build in number ?
 
dark sidius said:
is it realy the goal to put money in expensive drone when you have very long range missile and new stealth bomber build in number ?
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The 'expensive drone' is an assumption on your part. It is not such a radical design (supersonic, large, VTOL, extremely long range etc) that will push unit cost to multiples of Inc 1 levels. Performance has likely been spec'd to what the AF has signalled it is likely to pay for in those timelines mentioned in my earlier post (early to mid 2030s). A radical departure from a cost perspective would be something like the X-BAT which is probably approaching F-35 level unit costs..Vectis is doing no such thing.

The DAF CCA program is probably going to embody the digital century series approach of fielding new designs every 5 or so years. If Inc 1 gets fielded in 2028-2030 you can expect a next gen aircraft replacing those for production/acquisition dollars in the early to mid 2030s. Vectis seems to be LM's bet at capturing that requirement. I won't be surprised if we see/hear of other similar efforts from the other teams in the next couple of years as focus shifts on what comes after initial increment 1 fleet begins to bed down.

Lockheed is internally funding a level of effort that Boeing Australia achieved with its RAAF partner. But with a much stealthier and higher performance drone. For a legacy prime to write a check for nearly half a dozen air vehicles on IR&D ahead of a future service requirement speaks to the level of confidence industry at large has at DAF's future CCA plans. This is not a trivial level of internal investment.
 
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Not James Stockdale said:
Lockheed posted a new video, but it's just CGI and it doesn't look like there's anything new.
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Is that a regular E/O turret inside the faceted pod housing? Looks pretty goofy, but I suppose it could be a sensible cost-effectiveness trade...

That said, for something that's supposed to be more of an Inc.2-type drone and costs as much as a LIFT jet, relying on an MWIR E/O as its primary sensor (aside from the datalink and possibly ESM/ECM) doesn't seem particularly optimal to me...

Edit: I do like the deeper-buried intake, but it obviously eats into the internal volume available for fuel and equipment...
 

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CCAs are designed to incorporate RF, EW and EO/IR sensors based on what the Air Force wants. That's a requirement for Increment 1 itself and one would assume any future increment would retain that. This is just a concept from LM on what could go there.
 
bring_it_on said:
I bet Anduril, GA, Boeing and all others are probably also working on internal plans for higher performing CCA/ACPs to capture future CCA work.
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We actually know for a fact that they do. In an interview with both General Atomics and Anduril, they both stated that there are higher end platforms in development but they were not open for discussion. Kratos also flew Thanatos back in 2024. Of course nothing beside that fact was released.
 
donnage99 said:
We actually know for a fact that they do. In an interview with both General Atomics and Anduril, they both stated that there are higher end platforms in development but they were not open for discussion. Kratos also flew Thanatos back in 2024. Of course nothing beside that fact was released.
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This why I ask myself a question about Lockheed , they are late on performance drone , they lose CCA 1 , they try for CCA 2 but for a enormous company like Lockheed how they can be the last on it ? Kratos have Thanatos in secret and Hermeus is building high supersonic Drone faster than other. There is a need for a high supersonic attacker able to launch hypersonic missile , more than a subsonic drone that each company have to sell. I was waiting more Lockheed on capacity like Hermeus than Anduril or GA capacity , and don't forgot the Northrop one. What is happening in Lockheed to be out of all the most bigger futur contracts (FA/XX, F-47, B-21 ) ?
 
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dark sidius said:
This why I ask myself a question about Lockheed , they are late on performance drone , they lose CCA 1 , they try for CCA 2 but for a enormous company like Lockheed how they can be the last on it ?
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Several companies 'lost' CCA increment 1. Lockheed, Boeing, Northrop, Kratos. Kratos was actually the 'first' having secured the initial ACP contract award. It lost. AFRL worked with three OEM's on its ACP designs over the years. The Air Force selected two of those on the initial increment of the CCA program. What the AF has clearly shown, and what we are witnessing through IR&D across several companies (Kratos with Thanatos, Boeing with its Boeing Australia unit, and Northrop Grumman with its YFQ-48A) is that all these OEMs expect multiple future entry points into the CCA acquisition program. Which most likely isn't wishful think but rather something the Air Force and the program itself has made abundantly clear to these firms through future design awards (about half a dozen companies are under that next CCA contract).

Lockheed is not the 'last on the CCA'. There will be many more similar designs that will follow. I think they would look at the Vectis and say that they are actually the 'first' few when it comes to highly survivable CCA designs being proposed for the Air Force for future acquisition programs. Neither of the three primes prototyped any CCA's for the increment 1 offering prior to R&D contracts going to General Atomics and Anduril. Those two also had ACP work prior to their awards so were government funded under the the OBSS and AdAir contracts from AFRL with highly relatable designs eventually becoming their CCA Inc 1 offering.
 
Will we be looking potentially at the first supersonic CCAs fitted with those new higher thrust engines Reddington777? It would be a game changer if it were the case.
 
FighterJock said:
Will we be looking potentially at the first supersonic CCAs fitted with those new higher thrust engines Reddington777? It would be a game changer if it were the case.
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Probably not. These are marginally better than FJ44, 4k to 6k thrust iirc. If they do push some existing CCAs to just above supersonic max speed, I doubt that it was being looked at specifically for that purpose. As said before - going supersonic really doesnt have as much benefit as it used to.

They will probably give existing CCAs better performance or support somewhat larger CCAs.
 
This could be the evolution of the RQ-170 (from the nose mounted EOTS). LM ADP has a history of funding a platform internally then either winning a/the program or having some other agency customer. Nice design and very different from GA and Anduril, definitely capitalizing on LO. As Vectis and the general CCA program moves forward, will get interesting. Even though LM ADP shut out of NGAD/F-47 or F/A-XX, Palmdale is busy.
 
Would presumably be less of an issue if it's mainly intended as a reusable first stage for long range missiles.

Also, I think you can do funky stuff with the vortices coming off the leading edges to direct air into the dorsal intake. (IIRC some of the Gripen concepts with dorsal intakes would have done this, but I can't recall the exact details.)
 
Any idea for what is it ? The suspended Craft ?
 

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Halcyon66 said:
The submerged intake is going to have issues with high AOA?

Regards,
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Sure your engine inlet distortion is going to be worst at higher AoA than non-submerged inlet. The design question is, what is the highest AoA you’d expect you’d need to be able to sustain, and what is the resultant inlet distortion that the engine can tolerate there.

If you for example expect this thing to only be lobbing very long range AAM and never get into dog fights… do you really need an engine inlet that works at AoA > 10deg? In addition to that, would it be worth trading off very high AoA performance so you can slip in closer to launch your long range AAM closer so you have higher Pk shots? These are the tradeoffs people making CCAs are considering and what they chose gives you some hint as to how folks thinks CCAs will be employed.
 
quellish said:
IIRC this aircraft is designed for extended inverted flight (ala some of the UTA/FATE/UCAV concepts)
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So, the opposite of how a manned plane will roll so that the gees are always positive, this will roll so that they're always negative?
 
"OH you got close? Haha,thats cute." Rolls inverted and begins dogfight mode. So VLO upright and turn and burn inverted? Am i thinking properly?
 
FlyGuy369 said:
"OH you got close? Haha,thats cute." Rolls inverted and begins dogfight mode. So VLO upright and turn and burn inverted? Am i thinking properly?
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That was the idea back in the 90s. Simplifies some things, complicates others, like launching weapons
 
I mean…how could that possibly work for lift? For an evasive maneuver, I could see it being an option. The snap rolls automated systems execute seem…aggressive…and I could see an automated platform having a very tight reaction time once a threat was established.
 
snne said:
Is that a regular E/O turret inside the faceted pod housing? Looks pretty goofy, but I suppose it could be a sensible cost-effectiveness trade...
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Looks like a pretty standard Wescam MX-20
 
snne said:
Is that a regular E/O turret inside the faceted pod housing? Looks pretty goofy, but I suppose it could be a sensible cost-effectiveness trade...
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I mean, IIRC the F-35 EOTS was a Sniper pod, just not in the pod. And OG Sniper, not the Sniper XR.

So I'm totally cool for sticking an existing EO sensor inside a LO windscreen.
 
Scott Kenny said:
So, the opposite of how a manned plane will roll so that the gees are always positive, this will roll so that they're always negative?
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Why test a snap roll on a cruise missile? Always wondered if it was to present a smaller RCS target to the radar. Consider, that inverted the inlet is now on top and the wing pivots, as well as the main structural seam are now on top and shielded by the fuselage.
 
Sferrin said:
Why test a snap roll on a cruise missile? Always wondered if it was to present a smaller RCS target to the radar. Consider, that inverted the inlet is now on top and the wing pivots, as well as the main structural seam are now on top and shielded by the fuselage.
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If the missile has some flavor of MAWS built in, or at least an RHAW, I'm thinking it's a defensive maneuver. "Snap Roll to dodge incoming fire"
 

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