Northrop’s Talon Blue drone wingman makes first flight

Northrop Grumman’s YFQ-48A Talon Blue, the company’s self-funded entry for the U.S. Air Force’s drone wingman program, has made its first flight, flying entirely on its own from taxi to landing in Mojave, California.

The company announced the flight on Oct. 3. It said the aircraft taxied, took off, flew a series of maneuvers and landed without a pilot steering it remotely. Northrop Grumman did not say on what date the flight took place, how long it lasted, how high or fast the aircraft flew, or what the next steps in the test program are.

Talon Blue is designed to fly alongside crewed fighters as a Collaborative Combat Aircraft, the U.S. Air Force’s term for uncrewed jets that can scout, jam or carry weapons for pilots in F-35s, F-22s and the future F-47. The aircraft has an internal weapons bay, a high-mounted engine intake and a wide-set landing gear, which Northrop Grumman said allow it to handle a range of missions for the United States and allies.

“Our customers made it clear they need autonomous systems that can be fielded faster and more affordably without sacrificing mission effectiveness. We listened,” said Craig Woolston, vice president and general manager for research and advanced design at Northrop Grumman.

The company has focused its pitch on cost and production speed. It said design and manufacturing changes cut both the number of parts and the aircraft’s weight, which it says makes the drone cheaper and faster to build. Northrop Grumman has previously said Talon uses composite structures and roughly half as many parts as earlier designs.

Northrop Grumman built Talon Blue with its own money after losing out in the first round of the U.S. Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft competition. The program, first known as Project Lotus and later renamed Project Talon, was unveiled in December 2025. Later that month, the U.S. Air Force gave it the YFQ-48A prototype designation, calling it “a strong contender” in the program. The designation does not come with a contract.

The two Increment 1 winners are already moving ahead. In June, the U.S. Air Force ordered both General Atomics’ FQ-42A Dark Merlin and Anduril’s FQ-44A Fury into production, and both companies announced in late July that production aircraft were coming off their lines. Those drones first flew in August and October 2025, respectively.

Talon Blue’s realistic target is the next round, Increment 2, for which the U.S. Air Force has not yet chosen a design or set production plans. A service spokesperson said in December that nine companies were working on Increment 2 concepts but declined to name them or confirm whether Northrop Grumman was one.

Talon Blue is one part of what Northrop Grumman calls its Project Talon portfolio. The other is Talon IQ, a flying testbed based on Scaled Composites’ Model 437 aircraft that runs the company’s Prism mission autonomy software. Northrop Grumman uses it to test and mature autonomy software before it goes on combat aircraft. Scaled Composites, which builds experimental aircraft in Mojave, is a Northrop Grumman subsidiary.