U.S. Air Force Research Lab Releases First Footage of XQ-67A’s Maiden Flight

The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has released video footage of the maiden flight of the first in a second generation of Autonomous Collaborative Platforms, the XQ-67A demonstrator, developed under the Off-Board Sensing Station (OBSS) program.

The flight took place at the General Atomics Gray Butte Flight Operations Facility near Palmdale, California, on February 28. Although initial images were released shortly after the maiden flight, the first air-to-air footage was made available on June 26.

The XQ-67A was developed by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI) and is a product of AFRL’s OBSS program. This program validates a design, build, and test process based on a common chassis or genus approach, which aims to enable faster and more cost-effective aircraft replication.

The XQ-67A, designed and built in just over two years, is capable of autonomous flight but is also remotely piloted. It builds on the success of the XQ-58A Valkyrie and complements the Air Force Test Center’s X-62 VISTA and F-16 VENOM efforts to accelerate the fielding of Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA).

Under AFRL’s Low Cost Attritable Aircraft Platform Sharing (LCAAPS) program, the XQ-67A is intended as an attritable forward radar node, featuring side-looking radars on either side of its fuselage. This platform is part of the U.S.A.F.’s shift towards a distributed combination of manned and unmanned aircraft, replacing the retired E-8 JSTARS.

The OBSS program evolved from the Low Cost Attritable Aircraft Technologies (LCAAT) program, which developed the XQ-58A Valkyrie. The subsequent LCAAPS program transferred technology and knowledge from the XQ-58A into the OBSS program, leading to the development of the XQ-67A as the first of the second generation of Autonomous Collaborative Platforms.