Navy unmanned aerial vehicle pilots check the readouts during a test of a new Lockheed control system working with a General Atomics CCA “surrogate” on Nov. 5, 2024. (NAVAIR)

WASHINGTON — US Navy pilots sitting comfortably in Maryland recently took a new carrier-based drone control center out for a spin for the first time, piloting a General Atomics MQ-20 Avenger thousands of miles away using autonomous tech made by Lockheed Martin’s secretive Skunk Works division.

The live-flight test of the Navy’s Unmanned Carrier Aviation Mission Control Station (UMCS), conducted Nov. 5, was done “as part of an effort to advance technology for future Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA),” Naval Aviation Systems Command wrote in a release on Thursday. Both the Air Force and the Navy are pushing forward with CCA — essentially robotic drone wingmen to fly alongside or ahead of manned aircraft in combat operations — seen as the future of air dominance.

“This was a huge step for unmanned naval aviation,” Navy Air Vehicle Pilot (AVP) Lt. Steven Wilster said in the Navy release. “This demo showcased UMCS’s first live control of an unmanned air vehicle, and it was great to be part of history in the making. The team is paving the way for integrating critical unmanned capability across the joint force to combat the high-end threat our warfighters face today and in the future.”

For the test, Navy pilots in Patuxent River, Maryland, controlled the jet-powered MQ-20, which served as a “surrogate” for a future CCA bird, as it sliced through the sky in California, according to the Navy and a Lockheed announcement today.

“UMCS is laying a foundation that will enable control of all unmanned carrier aircraft, starting with the MQ-25 aircraft,” Capt. Daniel Fucito, program manager for the Navy’s Unmanned Carrier Aviation Program Office, said in the Navy release. “The UMCS opens the door for efficiently introducing future unmanned systems into the complex carrier command and control architecture.”

The Navy’s control station is built on what Lockheed Martin calls its “MDCX autonomy platform,” which Skunk Works Vice President and General Manager John Clark said was used to “rapidly integrate the MQ-20 ‘autonomy core’ with the UMCS, demonstrating common control capability and third-party platform integration.”

While both the Air Force and the Navy hope to see CCAs flying alongside their fighters and bombers within a few years, the services are pursuing the efforts separately. The Air Force has selected two platforms for its first tranche of aircraft, an aircraft from General Atomics’s Gambit family and Anduril’s Fury.

RELATED: ‘I don’t see it’: Before their CCA drones even take to the air, Anduril and GA trade shots

The Navy appears to be further behind in its quest for an actual aircraft, but has ideas about what it wants and does not want.

“I want something that’s going to fly for a couple hundred hours. The last hour it’s either a target or a weapon. I’m either going to hit something with it or I’m going to train [a sensor on it] and shoot it down,” Rear Adm. Stephen Tedford, the Navy’s program executive for unmanned systems and weapons, said during the Sea Air Space conference in April. “But I’m not going to sustain them for 30 years.”

At the time, he added that the Navy was looking for a platform that comes it an under $15 million each.

Wherever the Navy lands, it’s certain the USN and USMC AVPs want a reliable UMCS, perhaps aided by LM’s MDCX, to fly their CCAs for ISR, EW or combat missions ASAP. OK?