A fighter jet that needs no runway is a step closer to flight. Shield AI and GE Aerospace say they have completed engine light-off testing for the X-BAT. It is an AI-piloted strike aircraft, built to take off and land vertically. The two firms announced the milestone this week.
The nozzle that does the trick
The key part is a nozzle. Engineers slotted an Axisymmetric Vectoring Exhaust Nozzle, or AVEN, into GE’s F110-GE-129E engine. Then they fired it up at a test site in Peebles, Ohio. The nozzle pivots the engine’s exhaust in three dimensions. That lets the jet steer with its thrust. It can also balance on its tailpipe to rise and land straight up.
The hardware is not new. Engineers built AVEN for an experimental F-16 programme in the 1990s. It logged 73 hours of ground testing and 135 flight hours, then went into storage. Shield AI refurbished the old nozzle and pressed it back into service. The firm calls this the first fully integrated test of the system since the 1990s.
“X-BAT is designed to take off and land vertically from anywhere, no airbase, no runway,” said Armor Harris, a senior vice president at Shield AI.
A jet that flies itself
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The runway-free part is the point. Shield AI argues that airbases make easy targets in a modern war. A jet that lifts off from a ship, an island, or open ground is harder to knock out.
The X-BAT runs on Shield AI’s Hivemind autonomy software. It can fly on its own or alongside crewed aircraft. It also keeps working when communication and navigation signals are jammed. It fits the same push behind Europe’s wingman drones, only much bigger.
On paper, the numbers are serious. Each of its two internal bays holds weapons up to the 2,000-pound (907kg) class, roughly F-35 size. The jet makes 80 kilowatts of power for electronic-warfare and jamming gear. Shield AI claims a combat radius of 1,000 nautical miles, about 1,850km.
Not airborne yet
The caveats matter. This was a ground test of an engine, not a vertical flight. The figures come from Shield AI and GE, not an independent evaluator. The company says flight testing begins later this year.
There is a bigger question, too. An armed aircraft that flies and fights without a pilot feeds the debate over autonomous weapons. It echoes the wider worry over military AI. Shield AI’s slogan is “the greatest victory requires no war.” The X-BAT is still a strike fighter. Whether it can hover on that refurbished nozzle is what this year’s flight tests will decide.
