The US Air Force has released a video of the maiden flight of its XQ-67A demonstrator drone. Taken on February 28, 2024, the footage shows the autonomous aircraft strutting its stuff in the skies over Gray Butte Field Airport, Palmdale, California.
When the second- generation XQ-67A took to the air last February, it marked a major advance in the US Air Force's program to automate a large fraction of its fleet. The craft is an Off-Board Sensing Station (OBSS) uncrewed air vehicle, but in February the AFRL also revealed another concept, the Off-Board Weapon Station (OBWS), that would share a common chassis with the OBSS but be "faster and more maneuverable, with less endurance but better range."
The point of these concepts isn't just to help develop Loyal Wingman drones capable of working with piloted warplanes as an expendable reconnaissance and force-multiplier platform, but to do so using automotive design and manufacturing techniques. This will allow a single airframe to be the basis for a whole family of aircraft. Not only that, but these will be drones that can go from design to flight in only two years.
Based on the XQ-58A Valkyrie, the XQ-67A is intended to work with the Air Force Test Center’s X-62 VISTA and F-16 VENOM projects to push forward the development of autonomous aircraft systems for both drones and pilot-optional aircraft. The end goal is to create a fleet of aircraft that will turn fighter pilots into executive officers more concerned with completing the mission rather than operating an aircraft or, in the case of the OBWS, even combat.
The February tests were aimed not only at verifying the flight systems, but also the safety of the aircraft. The flights were conducted under remote control, though later ones will involve an increasingly higher degree of autonomy.
The maiden flight can be seen below.
Source: AFRL