New stand-in drones must fly supersonic and climb to 50000 feet
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The US Air Force is seeking industry proposals for target drones capable of imitating threats from cheap commercial aircraft to stealth fighters.
A recent Request for Information issued by the service sets a deadline of September 28 2026 for companies to submit concepts.
The requested drone series would span nearly every category of aerial threat, from small hobbyist-style platforms to heavy bombers.
The Air Force's request describes platforms that must stand in for cheap hobbyist drones on one end and advanced fifth-generation fighters or large multiengine aircraft on the other.
For supersonic fighter simulation, the request describes speeds beyond Mach 1.6 at roughly 40,000 feet, combined with sharp high-G maneuvering.
It also calls for tightly controlled radar signatures and layered infrared and radio-frequency emissions meant to resemble a genuine combat aircraft.
Systems meant to stand in for large drones would need to operate at altitudes near 50,000 feet, matching how high those aircraft actually fly.
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Midsize platforms would need to fly at speeds between Mach 0.5 and 0.8 while making sharp, forceful turns similar to real fighters.
Smaller systems, meant to substitute for compact scout-class drones, would fly well under 150 knots and support coordinated swarm behaviour.
For aircraft the size of a C-130, engineers care less about raw performance and more about matching physical scale, subsonic handling, and propulsion behaviour.
That accuracy allows engineers to test how well a missile's guidance system and warhead would perform against a realistically sized aircraft.
The service is explicit that affordability matters as much as realism, describing a preference for systems cheap and simple enough to be treated as expendable when a test requires it.
