Lockheed Says One F-35 Could Control Eight Autonomous Vectis Aircraft

Lockheed’s proposed arrangement pairs autonomous Vectis aircraft with crewed fighters: Aeronautics president Orlando Sanchez says the company has shown that a single F-35 could control as many as eight Vectis aircraft. He frames that relationship as part of a larger “family of systems and platforms,” rather than a bet on one aircraft replacing another.

Sanchez cites about 1,350 F-35s in service with the United States and its allies, with the fleet growing by roughly 160 a year. In his account, that existing force could be augmented by capabilities like Vectis. He says the concept is not a response to a particular competition, but a way to prepare for what future air dominance will require.

The operational case begins with sensor fusion. Fifth-generation aircraft such as the F-22 and F-35 can give pilots a view of the battlespace, Sanchez says, but their ability to act on that information may be constrained by the number of weapons available or by how far they can reach. Vectis is intended to extend that decision advantage into additional aircraft and missions, including air-to-air, air-to-ground and sensing.

Sanchez says Vectis could work alongside the F-35, F-22 or other platforms, helping a force act across a wider area. The Lockheed Martin animation shows a rendered Vectis aircraft on a runway and taxiing: the company’s visual conception of the aircraft it says will operate alongside existing fighters.

Sanchez describes Lockheed’s investment as an effort to anticipate customer needs rather than wait for formal requirements. He says the company has worked on the technologies behind Vectis for a long time, drawing on a history of drone development at Skunk Works. Asked about the cost, he gives no figure, saying the company is committed to investing ahead of demand.

At Skunk Works, Sanchez says, the guiding maxim is “only one miracle per program.” Vectis may look new to the public, he says, but its underlying technologies have been in development over time. He characterizes the aircraft as “lethal, survivable, adaptable” and says Lockheed is listening to global demand as it prepares the capability.

The historical example he offers is the D-21. Sanchez says the United States and the Soviet Union signed a treaty barring manned flights over one another’s territory; the CIA then asked Skunk Works to find a way to fly over the other country. The resulting drone, he says, flew at 2,000 miles an hour in the 1960s. He presents Vectis as carrying forward that drone-development heritage, while combining advanced hardware with software capabilities and open architecture.

For Sanchez, future air dominance depends on connecting platforms across domains—from space and air to the sea and the forces that can engage targets. Vectis would add to that family of capabilities alongside existing fifth-generation aircraft, rather than stand alone as a new franchise. He says Lockheed is getting ahead of requirements because it expects those capabilities to matter.

That framing also answers Ed Ludlow’s question about Project Meridian, which he described as a 120-day effort to develop proposals for future threats. Sanchez welcomed the initiative as a way to consider how warfare is changing and how to prepare. He said Lockheed works with the Pentagon and government agencies on future capabilities, and described Meridian as a way to open the process to more participants. If Lockheed identifies something useful through the effort, he said, it would bring it into the wider “big tent” and help deliver it.

The interview also touched on the SR-71, which Sanchez said was developed at Skunk Works. He noted that 97% of the organization’s portfolio is classified and said he would like to see the SR-71 fly again, while leaving any decision to NASA.