DSEI 2025 — Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works and the rapid prototyping offshoot of UK manufacturer BAE Systems, FalconWorks, have launched a new partnership to jointly design and develop a family of autonomous uncrewed air systems, beginning with a platform equipped with electronic attack capabilities.
Those capabilities will enable the aircraft to support Suppression of Enemy Air Defense (SEAD) operations, according to FalconWorks Managing Director David Holmes.
He said during a press briefing here at the DSEI exposition in London that the last three years of modern conflict have illustrated “the need for our warfighters to be given the capability [to] … punch a hole through these very complex and denied electronic warfare environments.”
He also noted that a number of companies under the ownership of BAE Systems, including UK drone manufacturer Malloy Aeronautics, will support the collaboration with Skunk Works. Additionally, BAE Systems’s microwave products center in Nashua, NH, will “no doubt” be involved with aircraft design to resolve size, weight and power (SWaP) issues, said Holmes.
OJ Sanchez, Skunk Works’s general manager, told reporters today that the overall design of the future family of air systems, which includes a central focus on modular payloads, is based on the company’s previous Common Multi-Mission Truck (CMMT) concept.
He shared that the air system will be “adaptable” and capable of being launched by way of “air drop, a ground launch, maritime launch or even out of a wide body [logistics] application.”
Key details ranging from possible stealth attributes of the aircraft, its range, cost per vehicle or internal investments made by the manufacturers to speed the project along, were not disclosed by the two executives, though an undisclosed engine has been decided upon.
Skunk Works and FalconWorks will jointly collaborate on the family of air systems “in a way that is cost effective for our customers, easily deployable and has the expandability that is needed in the marketplace today,” said Sanchez.
“What we have found in this evolving space [of future aviation capabilities] as well as in the Skunk Works and Falcon Works ecosystem is you have to be flexible to include” workshare arrangements, said Sanchez. “As those flow out” they will be shared with the media, he explained.
The new partnership between BAE Systems and Skunk Works builds on “over 12 months” of the two companies working together, added Holmes.