DARPA’s New X-Plane: Meet the X-68A LongShot Drone

The Air Force has a new X-plane: The X-68A LongShot from General Atomics is an air-launched drone intended to carry additional air-to-air munitions.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has been developing LongShot since 2021, and announced on Feb. 17 that flight testing could begin “as early as the end of 2026.” 

DARPA described its objective in 2022 as an air-launched system capable of carrying and firing multiple air-to-air missiles. That remains the long-term goal: Budget documents describe the LongShot as being able to engage multiple targets with “highly energetic air-to-air missiles.” Initial flight tests will rein in those ambitions slightly, focusing on firing a single “captive sub-munition,” according to DARPA. 

The first flight tests will launch from F-15 fighters, but in its releases, General Atomics has noted that LongShot is intended to be “host-platform agnostic,” meaning it could be employed by fighters, bombers, or even from mobility aircraft as a palletized munition. 

DARPA budget documents also note the system could be of interest to the Navy.

LongShot has the potential to “fundamentally change air combat operations,” DARPA and General Atomics contend in separate press releases. It promises to keep conventional crewed fighters “farther from the front lines, drastically increasing pilot safety while extending the overall force package reach and mission effectiveness,” both releases state. 

Previous DARPA budget documents described LongShot entering contested airspace at a low-speed, then challenging adversaries with high-speed projectiles. DARPA initially signed development deals with Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, in addition to General Atomics, but tapped GA’s solution for continued development in 2022.

The LongShot vehicle has already completed full-scale wind tunnel tests and “successful trials of the vehicle’s parachute recovery and weapons-release systems,” DARPA said. This year, armed with a $76.9 million for the X-68A, DARPA aims to complete initial flight tests certifying the platform’s performance and stability and then start live-fire flight tests. 

The X-68A is General Atomics’ second X-plane, after the XQ-67A Off-Board Sensing Station. That aircraft, also uncrewed, was built for the Air Force Research Laboratory, first flew in 2024, and is the basis for General Atomics’ YFQ-42A, its candidate for the Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft program.