Shield AI expects to fly its unmanned fighter jet within months

Shield AI expects to start flying its X-BAT prototype unmanned fighter jet by year’s end—and is getting $150 million from the Navy to keep developing it, officials said.

“We’ve been building two prototype vehicles—they’re full scale. The first one will be done in the next couple of weeks here,” said Armor Harris, Shield AI’s senior vice president of aircraft. “And then we’ll be getting into flight testing at the end of this year…going straight to the vertical takeoff and landing tests as the final de-risk of the [technology].”

Shield AI also secured $150 million from the Navy to continue developing the X-BAT, a modification to an other transaction agreement. The venture-capital-backed company promised to match the investment with its own funds. That brings total planned development spending on the project, which also received $50 million from the Navy and the Defense Innovation Unit in August and a dollar match from Shield, to $400 million.

“We really developed X-BAT in collaboration with NAVAIR and NAWCAD, which is the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division—the experts for naval aviation,” Harris said. “The Navy has been funding the development through the newly created Rapid Capability Cell. So there was an initial $50 million investment earlier this year. This is basically the next round of investment, which is $150 million to continue the development of the platform.” 

The company also recently named two sites for production and flight testing of the autonomous jet.

Under the X-BAT contract, the Navy money will be released to Shield AI as it meets developmental milestones.

“There will be a follow-on phase in the future if Shield AI and X-BAT continue to perform well—all leading up to fielding an early operational capability in about 2029. So basically, the way that the OTA is structured is that there’s milestone-based payments for Shield achieving specific objectives along the way,” Harris said. 

The company also aims to export the aircraft as well as sell it to the Pentagon. 

“There’s been a tremendous amount of international interest in X-BAT because of its multi-role capabilities, its ability to be runway independent, and basically what’s called the cost-per effect,” he said. Particularly interested countries are “looking to augment F-35 and F-16 capabilities” and those “that don’t necessarily have the infrastructure and the size of an air force needed to operate a jet like the F-35.”