The Have Remy Check Administration Venture noticed USAF Check Pilot College college students straight concerned in an AI agent’s improvement, simulation and stay trial with Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works.
The U.S. Air Power’s X-62 Variable Stability In-Flight Simulator Check Plane (VISTA) reached a brand new milestone when Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works division and the Check Pilot College (TPS) collaborated to develop and practice the corporate’s Synthetic Intelligence (AI) agent governing a “missile evasion situation,” a part of a program referred to as Have Remy Check Administration Venture (TMP).
The Feb. 23, 2026, press launch from Lockheed stated this marketing campaign, involving simulation – in each the high-fidelity F-16 simulator and the Skunk Works’ Supermassive simulation engine – and stay execution, was the primary time the X-62 VISTA “hosted a Lockheed Martin AI system with direct management of the plane.”
The Have Remy TMP, a “close-knit partnership” between Skunk Works and the TPS – which operates the X-62 VISTA with the mother or father 412th Check Wing at Edwards AFB, California – helped primarily validate and practice Lockheed Martin’s tactical AI with suggestions from TPS college students. Lockheed engineers then corrected the code and integrated it into the VISTA inside hours.
Skunk Works® teamed up with the @usairforce Check Pilot College (TPS) @TestUsaf to fly and check our autonomous missile-evasion functionality. Click on for extra: 🦨🔗
— Lockheed Martin (@LockheedMartin) February 23, 2026
Missile evasion includes high-g maneuvers, the employment of countermeasures, comparable to chaff and flares, and digital warfare jamming to disrupt each the missile and the ground-based radar. It’s unclear whether or not plenty of check flights had been flown in a protracted cyclic ‘development-AI training-flight’ loop, or a single linear pathway.
The framing from the assertion that comes closest to explaining this factor says: “In over 100 check factors, TPS college students flew the brokers below actual‑world circumstances, demonstrating strong sim-to-real switch of the autonomous missile‑evasion functionality.”
.@LockheedMartin Skunk Works® efficiently assessments its autonomous missile-evasion functionality by means of partnership with @TestUsaf, the @usairforce Check Pilot College. Click on for extra:
— Lockheed Martin Information (@LMNews) February 23, 2026
X-62 VISTA
Different AI brokers which have efficiently piloted the X-62 VISTA to this point had been a part of the Air Power Analysis Laboratory’s (AFRL) Autonomous Air Fight Operations (AACO) and the Protection Superior Analysis Venture Company’s (DARPA) Air Fight Evolution (ACE) packages.
In 12 flights between Dec. 1 and 16, 2022, whereas AACO’s AI brokers carried out one-on-one beyond-visual-range (BVR) engagements towards a simulated adversary, the ACE’s AI brokers carried out within-visual-range maneuvering, often known as “dogfighting”, towards constructive AI red-team brokers.
The plane can be slated to obtain a slew of latest capabilities by means of the Mission Techniques Improve (MSU), a part of an funding from the Check Useful resource Administration Middle (TRMC), certainly one of which incorporates Raytheon’s PhantomStrike Energetic Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar.
The VISTA feeds into broader trade and Air Power autonomous air fight know-how and Collaborative Fight Plane Growth (CCA) efforts. These comprise Anduril’s YFQ-44A Fury, the GA-ASI YFQ-42A Darkish Merlin, the Northrop Grumman YFQ-48A Talon Blue, the Kratos XQ-58A Valkyrie, pairing assessments of the GA-ASI MQ-20 Avenger with the F-22 Raptor and GA-ASI’s XQ-67A Off-Board Sensing Station (OBSS).
Missile evasion assessments
The press launch by Lockheed Martin stated that the Have Remy TMP built-in TPS college students into the “design, check, and analysis of autonomous brokers” for “accelerated improvement the place they:
Outlined a missile‑evasion situation, demanding break up‑second resolution‑making and 3D maneuvering on the limits of the VISTA flight-envelope.
Formed coaching of the AI in hours, with billions of simulated missions using Skunk Works’ Supermassive simulation engine.
Guided improvement of the AI utilizing a high-fidelity F-16 simulator that allowed digital testing previous to stay execution.
Supplied suggestions on novel AI monitoring algorithms that characterize AI brokers’ replication of simulated efficiency within the real-world.”
Whereas TPS college students witnessed first‑hand the AI transferring from “principle to flight‑prepared functionality,” Skunk Works’ engineers “bought entry to the USAF X-62A VISTA high-performance autonomy testbed to judge their know-how,” added the discharge.
The Supermassive simulation engine-F-16 simulator-live flight route noticed Skunk Works’ engineers repeatedly refining the AI’s efficiency by matching its real-world behaviour in simulation. AI engineers developed, debugged, and “examined updates in hours – pushing updates to VISTA within the discipline with confidence that the system would carry out as anticipated.”
“This real-to-sim switch functionality permits engineers to right away combine classes realized from stay flight into the AI autonomy stack,” stated the corporate.
📰 The @usairforce has awarded Raytheon a contract to equip the autonomous X-62A Variable In-flight Simulation Check Plane with a PhantomStrike radar. Extra:
📸: U.S. Air Power pic.twitter.com/t7DMYgegXt
— RTX (@RTX_News) December 19, 2025
“The Have Remy TMP showcases Lockheed Martin’s distinctive capacity to develop and check extremely competent tactical AI whereas leveraging a palms‑on partnership that brings Air Power TPS college students straight into the AI improvement loop,” continued Lockheed Martin. “By proving that autonomous brokers will be safely monitored, understood, and managed in actual time, we’re turning the imaginative and prescient of human‑machine teaming into an operational actuality – making future missions safer, simpler and decisively dominant.”
Missile evasion in fight
The AI agent could very properly discover its method into Lockheed Martin’s Vectis stealth loyal wingman, which the corporate would possibly pitch for the CCA’s Increment 2 part.
Increased order duties like evading missiles autonomously are additionally a part of the following evolution the following era of CCAs could be anticipated to have. The present ones would freeze the elementary {hardware}, design, networking know-how and most significantly logistics, techniques, ideas and command tasking procedures.
NEWS: X-62 VISTA to obtain radar and sensor capabilities by means of an funding by the Check Useful resource Administration Middle.
Enhancements will push X-62 to judge extra complicated #AI and #autonomy situations with the #USAF Check Pilot College. @HQ_AFMC
Extra- pic.twitter.com/A331fXATXy
— Edwards Air Power Base (@EdwardsAFB) December 18, 2025
After tasking, the fight position could be represented by off-board weapons launch, whereas the drone may additionally act as off-board sensors, after autonomously taxing, taking-off, holding Fight Air Patrols alongside pre-set waypoints, returning-to-base and touchdown. A latest video by Anduril in regards to the first flight of its YFQ-44A Fury CCA with an inert AIM-120 AMRAAM reveals management room footage of its operation and command tasking for these operation modes.
The X-62 VISTA can be the suitable candidate for testing autonomous missile evasion AI software program, on condition that it’s set to obtain the PhantomStrike radar, making it each an off-board sensing, and off-board weapons launch platform. For security functions, the X-62A is flown with check pilots to disengage the AI agent if wanted.
That is what we wrote whereas reporting on the PhantomStrike for the X-62:
“The addition of the PhantomStrike will enable seeing each whether or not the AI brokers can establish/discriminate potential threats upon detection (off-board sensing) and the way they maneuver and reply with simulated air-to-air missile fireplace (off-board weapons launch). Air Power, AFRL and DARPA testers can then use Machine Studying (ML) to coach and refine their motion.”
Battle Unfair. pic.twitter.com/Jnzk6i3W1m
— Anduril Industries (@anduriltech) February 23, 2026
The U.S. Air Power routinely assessments countermeasures, with one such train in August 2025 testing the radar, missile warning programs and countermeasure dispensers of HH-60G Pave Hawk and HH-60W Jolly Inexperienced II fight search and rescue helicopters in response to a simulated assault by an F-15D Eagle. The check could have assessed their sensitivity, response time to radar and missile focusing on at numerous ranges and modes – energetic, passive or Monitor Whereas Scan (TWS).
