Shield AI's X-BAT Drone ‘Fighter’ will Begin VTOL Flight Testing in Kansas this Year

Shield AI told TWZ recently that it will begin flight testing its hugely ambitious X-BAT vertical takeoff and landing drone ‘fighter,’ near Newton, Kansas, this year.

Armor Harris, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the company’s growing aircraft division, who is also the ‘father’ of X-BAT, told us on the floor of AFA’s Warfare Symposium in Denver today that the aircraft’s central differentiator, its ability to launch and recover vertically, will be a central focus of early flight testing.

The stakes are incredibly high for Shield AI when it comes to X-BAT. They are trying to do something nobody else is offering in the high-performance air combat drone sector. X-BAT could drastically change the flexibility and survivability of advanced uncrewed tactical airpower, but achieving stealth, a large combat radius, a relevant payload, and doing it all at a cost that doesn’t send the DoW running is no easy task, especially for a young airframer like Shield AI. Now doing all that and launching and recovering it vertically from basically anywhere, that’s a whole other level.

With such a lofty goal comes doubters who think Shield AI is reaching outside their capabilities with the X-BAT concept. Surely these include competitors who would have a hard time arguing for their air combat solutions if X-BAT were to exist in operational form and capable of the things Shield AI claims.

Source: The War Zone