The Air Force has given Northrop Grumman’s new Project Talon aircraft the official designation of YFQ-48A, the service announced Dec. 22.
That makes Northrop’s potential competitor for USAF’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft program the third CCA to be designated an uncrewed fighter aircraft. Under Pentagon naming conventions, Y designates prototype, F means fighter, and Q means unmanned. The surprise announcement, coming just weeks after Northrop unveiled Project Talon at its Mojave, Calif., facilities, marks the aircraft as a “strong contender” for the CCA program, an Air Force release stated.
Separately, the Air Force also announced it had awarded nine contracts under Increment 2 of the CCA program, without offering a clear picture of how increments 1 and 2 differ.
The only two previously announced CCA designators were for Increment 1 competitors, General Atomics’ YFQ-42A and Anduril’s YFQ-44A. The Air Force announced those designations in March, more than a year awarding those CCA contracts and nearly a year after Anduril and GA were named finalists. It is unclear whether there are YFQ-45 or – 46 aircraft still in development, or why Northrop’s aircraft got the YFQ-48A designation.
The Air Force gave Northrop that designator at almost the same time as it announced the CCA program’s next phase. On Dec. 22, an Air Force spokesperson confirmed to Air & Space Forces Magazine that USAF awarded nine “concept refinement” contracts for Increment 2 earlier in December. Breaking Defense first reported the contracts on Dec. 19.
The Air Force spokesperson declined to name any of the nine companies and did not say whether the YFQ-48A designation confirmed Northrop as one of the recipients.
The Air Force release on the YFQ-48A does not mention Increment 2 by name, but does state that the designation “highlights the ongoing partnership between the Air Force and Northrop Grumman and acknowledges the continued progress of the YFQ-48A as a strong contender in the CCA program.”
A spokesperson for Northrop declined to comment.
Northrop developed Project Talon on its own after the company failed to win an Air Force deal in the original CCA competition. Company officials did not disclose performance specifications, cost, or many details on the design, but they did say the new CCA is “significantly different” from its first design: 1,000 pounds lighter, with 50 percent fewer parts and a 30 percent faster construction time.
“The idea was to see if we could build an aircraft that had all the same capability of our original offering, and do it faster,” said Tom Jones, vice president of Northrop’s Aeronautics Division, in early December. “So the outcome was an aircraft, but the outcome we’re shooting for was the process: How do we design and build things that perform at a high level, but that we can build quickly now and can do affordably?”
Jones and other Northrop officials said then that Project Talon had not been designed specifically for Increment 2 of the CCA program nor for other competitions run by the Navy or other services.
Pursuing its work on its own drew favor from the Air Force, however, which thanked Northrop in its release. “We are encouraged by Northrop Grumman’s continued investment in developing advanced semi-autonomous capabilities,” said Brig. Gen. Jason Voorheis, program executive officer for fighters and advanced aircraft. “Their approach aligns with our strategy to foster competition, drive industry innovation, and deliver cutting-edge technology at speed and scale.”
Others aircraft makers are pursuing similar courses. In September, Lockheed Martin announced it was working on a CCA-like fighter escort called Vectis, and the following month, Shield AI unveiled X-BAT, its concept for a vertical takeoff and landing, semi-autonomous drone that can achieve supersonic speeds.
The Air Force did not immediately respond to a query as to whether it is considering official designations for those concepts or others.
