YFQ-48A Talon Blue to Fly From a Royal Navy Carrier in 2027

The Royal Navy has announced plans to launch Northrop Grumman’s YFQ-48A Talon Blue uncrewed combat aircraft from one of its Queen Elizabeth class carriers in British waters in 2027, in the service’s first planned sea trial of a jet-powered collaborative combat aircraft. The First Sea Lord, General Sir Gwyn Jenkins, set out the plan on November 10 aboard HMS Prince of Wales at the International Sea Power Conference in Oslo, stating: “In two days’ time, on this carrier, I will sign a statement of intent with our friends at Northrop Grumman to prepare their TALON demonstrator for trials with the Royal Navy under Project VANQUISH.” No contract value was disclosed, and the trial is meant to inform requirements rather than lead directly to an order. The decision highlights how fast the Royal Navy is moving to pair its F-35B fleet with uncrewed jets, with the service having picked an American demonstrator that already flies rather than a future British design.

The Talon was developed with company funds by Northrop Grumman and its Scaled Composites subsidiary after the firm failed to win a place in the first increment of the U.S. Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft program, where Anduril’s YFQ-44A Fury and General Atomics’ YFQ-42A were selected. Unveiled at Mojave Air and Space Port in California on December 3, 2025, it received the YFQ-48A designation on December 22, with the U.S. Air Force stating that Northrop Grumman remained eligible to compete for later CCA contracts. The aircraft made its first flight from Mojave on October 3, 2026, which Northrop Grumman described as fully autonomous from taxi through take-off, manoeuvres and landing. It uses a single Pratt & Whitney PW500 series turbofan and has an internal weapons bay, although no figures for its range, payload or unit cost have been published.

The trial answers a particularly demanding requirement, since Project VANQUISH, launched in 2025, called for a high subsonic jet-powered aircraft with credible endurance and payload for reconnaissance, strike and air-to-air refuelling missions, able to operate from carriers that launch aircraft from a ski-jump and have neither catapults nor arresting wires. It remains uncertain whether the 2027 trial will include a recovery to the deck as well as a launch, since a conventional jet landing is considerably harder on ships built around the F-35B. The Royal Navy flew General Atomics’ propeller-driven Mojave from HMS Prince of Wales off the U.S. east coast on November 15, 2023, and in October this year it launched four Nyan drones from HMS Queen Elizabeth.

The Talon trial sits within the Royal Navy’s Maritime Aviation Transformation program, which aims to build a hybrid air wing combining F-35B fighters, Merlin and Wildcat helicopters and uncrewed aircraft of several sizes. Jenkins said the aim was to field new technology “not by waiting years for a perfect solution, but by working with industry,” having set a target in 2025 of a first collaborative combat aircraft launch from a British carrier by 2027. China’s navy is pursuing the same capability from a considerably better equipped deck, with the GJ-21 stealth drone having made its first landing aboard the Type 076 amphibious assault ship Sichuan in late October, a ship fitted with the electromagnetic catapult and arresting gear that the British carriers lack.