Quote:Skunk Works Unveils Stealthy Collaborative Combat Aircraft Design
Brian Everstine September 21, 2025

Skunk Works rendering of Vectis collaborative combat aircraft.

Credit: Skunk Works

Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works is taking work it did to compete for the U.S. Air Force’s sixth-generation fighter and applying it to a new stealthy, survivable Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) design for both U.S. and international customers.
The new Vectis uncrewed combat aircraft will fly in two years, with the goal of providing air-to-air, air-to-surface and surveillance missions alongside crewed aircraft.
O.J. Sanchez, vice president and general manager of Skunk Works, told reporters the Vectis design takes work from the sixth-generation prototype that the company built and flew, along with the RQ-170 low-observable uncrewed aircraft vehicle (UAS) and “other systems in the classified spaces.”
“Skunk Works is charting a critical path with this Vectis program to unlock new integrated capabilities at an ultracompetitive speed and price point,” Sanchez says. “Vectis provides best-in-class survivability at the CCA price point.”

Vectis comes from extensive operational analysis within Skunk Works, where the company modeled the system flying with Lockheed’s F-22s and F-35s. As the U.S. Air Force is determining requirements for the next increment of its CCA program, specifically how survivable and capable the aircraft should be, Skunk Works has decided to proceed with a reusable design that appears to be on the high end of the spectrum. Though Skunk Works did not provide a cost estimate, it is likely to be more expensive than other designs that focus more on being attritable.
“Should the Air Force find they need a highly survivable platform with the flexibility that Vectis enables for Increment II, I think it’ll be a great candidate,” Sanchez says.
The aircraft is large for the CCA class. Sanchez says it is smaller than the company’s F-16 but larger than the comparatively low-cost Common Multi-Mission Truck—an air vehicle designed to be launched from the company’s Rapid Dragon palletized system off the back of a cargo aircraft.
Sanchez would not identify the engine that will be used in Vectis, just that it is “sized appropriately to be able to fly alongside and work with” crewed aircraft. The company’s operational analysis shows that the ability for the aircraft to be supersonic is not necessary, he says.
“I wouldn’t go as far as to say supersonic is what we see is needed in this space,” he says.
While the company is pitching the design potentially for the Air Force’s CCA program and timing the announcement with the beginning of the Air and Space Force’s convention, Sanchez says it is also potentially applicable for the U.S. Navy’s similar program and international partners. The latter point appears to pit Vectis against the similar Boeing MQ-28 Ghost Bat.
Sanchez says Vectis is “aligned with” the U.S. Air Force’s government-reference architecture that is used to bring on independent mission systems for CCAs. The company is designing it to be flexible for different missions, he says.
“I would see Vectis’ flexibility that’s being built in, along with its survivability, being very attractive to multiple mission problem sets, and then the agility and the way we’re doing flexible payload design can be tailored toward specific countries or programs as they need,” he says.
The stealthy, survivable design that is capable of being a daily flyer appears to be a shift in the Skunk Works’ approach to CCAs. Last year, Sanchez’s predecessor John Clark told Aviation Week that the group’s operational analysis (OA) showed CCAs largely becoming expensive targets—surviving just long enough to do their designated role and then at best becoming decoys. Sanchez says that analysis was done for the specific CCA Increment I competition at the time. Since then, OA has evolved with different designs and tactics in mind.
“Operational analysis is robust,” he says. “It’s not a singular point in time. There are design trades that we’ve made in this and mission applications where we clearly see the opportunity for a reusable, highly survivable and flexible platform like Vectis.”