An F-22 Raptor pilot directed an unmanned jet from inside the cockpit during a flight test on October 21, 2025, at the Nevada Test and Training Range, marking what industry participants describe as a first for the stealth fighter. The company-funded demonstration brought together General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI), Lockheed Martin, and L3Harris to prove that a fifth-generation fighter can command a drone wingman in real time. The result is a concrete step toward a future where a single pilot controls lethal autonomous aircraft alongside a crewed jet, a concept the U.S. Air Force has been chasing for years but has never publicly demonstrated from an F-22.
F-22 Commands MQ-20 Avenger Mid-Flight
During the October test, the F-22 pilot used a new cockpit tool called the Pilot Vehicle Interface, or PVI, to issue commands to a GA-ASI Avenger jet-powered unmanned aircraft system while both were airborne over Nevada. The Avenger is a stealthy, high-altitude drone built by General Atomics that can carry sensors and weapons, making it a natural candidate for a “loyal wingman” role alongside manned fighters. By placing control authority inside the F-22’s cockpit rather than routing commands through a distant ground station, the demonstration compressed the decision loop between pilot and drone to near-instantaneous speed.
That distinction matters for contested environments where satellite links and ground relays can be jammed or destroyed. A pilot who can task a drone directly, without depending on a vulnerable relay chain, retains combat effectiveness even when communications infrastructure degrades. The test did not simulate a full combat scenario, but it proved the foundational link: a human aviator flying a supersonic stealth jet can simultaneously direct an unmanned platform from the same seat, issuing tasking while still managing the F-22’s own sensors, weapons, and flight profile.
How the Pilot Vehicle Interface Works
Lockheed Martin, which built the F-22 and led the PVI development through its Skunk Works advanced projects division, describes the interface as an integration-ready system designed for both current and future platforms. That language signals the company intends the PVI to be more than a one-off experiment. If the same hardware and software can be adapted to other fighters, including the F-35 or emerging designs under the Next Generation Air Dominance effort, the technology becomes a fleet-wide capability rather than a single-aircraft trick, allowing different jets to command common families of autonomous wingmen.
The PVI sits inside the cockpit and gives the pilot a way to send directives to the drone without requiring a separate operator on the ground. Lockheed Martin’s framing of the tool as “integration-ready” suggests it was engineered to fit existing cockpit architectures with minimal modification, lowering the barrier to adoption. At the same time, the companies have not detailed exactly how commands are translated into drone behavior, or how much autonomy remains onboard the Avenger once a task is assigned. No official U.S. Air Force statement has confirmed plans to integrate the PVI operationally, and the technical specifics of its command protocols, datalinks, and the Avenger’s autonomous response limits remain undisclosed.
Industry-Funded, Not Pentagon-Directed
One detail that separates this test from typical defense milestones is its funding source. The demonstration was a company-funded effort, not a Pentagon-contracted program. GA-ASI, Lockheed Martin, and L3Harris pooled their own resources to stage the flight, with Lockheed’s Skunk Works division playing a leadership role. That approach carries a strategic message: the defense industry is betting its own money that crewed-uncrewed teaming will become a core requirement, and the companies want to present the Air Force with a working solution rather than wait for a formal request for proposals or a lengthy analysis-of-alternatives process.
Industry-funded demonstrations are not unusual in defense, but they carry risk. Companies absorb the cost of flight hours, engineering labor, and range access with no guarantee the military will buy the result. The willingness of three major contractors to share that financial exposure suggests high confidence in near-term demand and in the broader shift toward autonomous systems. It also positions these firms ahead of competitors who may be developing similar capabilities under classified government programs. By going public with results, GA-ASI and Lockheed Martin are effectively pressuring the Air Force to accelerate its own timeline for fielding autonomous wingmen and signaling to Congress that industry can move faster than traditional acquisition cycles.
What This Means for Air Combat Strategy
The operational logic behind crewed-uncrewed teaming is straightforward: drones are cheaper and more expendable than piloted jets. An F-22 that can direct one or more armed drones gains additional sensor coverage, weapons capacity, and tactical options without putting another pilot at risk. In a high-threat environment, such as contested airspace protected by advanced surface-to-air missiles, a formation of stealth fighters backed by autonomous wingmen could overwhelm adversary air defenses through sheer numbers and distributed firepower. The drone absorbs the risk of flying into the most dangerous threat zones while the pilot remains at a safer standoff distance and orchestrates the engagement.
Until now, most public discussion of this concept has treated it as a future aspiration rather than a near-term reality. The October flight test challenges that assumption by demonstrating that a fifth-generation fighter can already command a drone from the cockpit using a bolt-on interface. The gap between demonstration and fielding still includes software certification, tactics development, training syllabi, and integration with military command-and-control networks, all of which take years. Yet the hardware proof-of-concept is now on record, and the companies involved clearly intend to push for rapid adoption, arguing that iterative field experiments can refine tactics faster than purely theoretical studies or simulations.
Unanswered Questions and Missing Voices
For all its significance, the October test leaves several questions open. No direct quotes from the pilot who flew the mission have been released, and no U.S. Air Force officials have publicly commented on the results or indicated whether the service plans to pursue the PVI for operational use. The absence of a Pentagon endorsement means the demonstration remains, for now, an industry achievement rather than a validated military capability. Without knowing the specific command protocols the PVI used, or the degree to which the Avenger could decline unsafe instructions on its own, it is difficult for outside observers to assess how much meaningful autonomy the drone exercised during the event.
The test also raises broader policy and ethical issues that have yet to be addressed in public. If a single pilot can control multiple unmanned aircraft, each potentially armed, how will rules of engagement and accountability be structured in combat? What safeguards will ensure that datalink disruptions or software errors do not lead to unintended actions by autonomous wingmen? Until the Air Force and the Department of Defense articulate how these systems will be governed, the October demonstration will stand as an impressive technical milestone whose strategic and legal implications remain unsettled. For now, the Nevada flight shows what is technically possible; the harder work of deciding how, where, and under what constraints to use such capabilities still lies ahead.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
