Fifty years after the first F-16 fighter jet took off from California’s Edwards Air Force Base in 1974, another Fort Worth-built F-16 is making aviation history over the desert terrain by flying with artificial intelligence at the controls in place of human pilots.
The two-seater X-62A VISTA, a heavily modified F-16 built at Fort Worth’s General Dynamics aircraft plant more than 30 years ago, has over the past two years completed a series of transformational tests using artificial intelligence. The tests are part of an evolving Air Force strategy to team future generations of crewed warplanes with clusters of advanced robotic drones often described as “wingmen.”
Fort Worth-based Lockheed Martin Aeronautics is a key partner in the AI development program through its storied Skunk Works advanced development program in Palmdale, California. Lockheed Martin became the nation’s F-16 manufacturer after a merger with Martin Marietta and the acquisition of General Dynamics aviation division in the 1990s.
On May 2, with U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall in the front seat, the orange-and-white X-62A flew with artificial intelligence to participate in a dogfight matching the AI-piloted fighter against a conventionally controlled F-16.
The dueling F-16s came nearly nose-to-nose in a series of maneuvers within 1,000 feet of each other, according to the Associated Press, which witnessed the aerial confrontation. The Air Force hasn’t disclosed the winner.
An earlier dog-fight between VISTA and a conventionally controlled F-16 took place out of Edwards Air Force Base in September 2023 and was a world first. Multiple other dog-fights involving AI took place before Secretary Kendall’s flight, which stoked international attention and boosted the service’s goal of developing hundreds of unmanned Collaborative Combat Aircraft deep into the next decade.
The VISTA started life as a Block 30 F-16D built in the 1980s and has received extensive modifications and upgrades, according to Air Force and Lockheed Martin officials. The test plane can fly nearly twice the speed of sound at a maximum speed of 1,350 miles per hour.
Kendall, fully outfitted in a pilot’s helmet and flight suit, was accompanied by Maj. Ryan “Lobo” Forystek, who flew the aircraft. In a statement after the first dogfight in April, the Air Force secretary said the accomplishment made reality out of what had been “a distant dream” and “broke one of the most significant barriers in combat aviation.”
John Clark, vice president and general manager of Skunk Works, described the X-62A VISTA as “a crucial platform” designed to establish AI certification standards that “will revolutionize the future of aerospace.”
“The need for innovation at speed and scale is greater than ever,” he said in a press release following the Air Force secretary’s flight. Skunk Works describes VISTA as an “AI pathfinder” that will “provide cutting edge” technology.
Skunk Works is teamed with the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, better known as DARPA, the Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards, and other government and industry partners in support of the Air Combat Evolution program to develop and test artificial intelligence for future aircraft. Another primary partner is Calspan, a science and technology company in Buffalo, New York.
About 2,200 employees support Skunk Works at Lockheed Martin’s headquarters in Fort Worth, primarily in engineering, said Lockheed Martin communications director Kenneth B. Ross.
In a joint telephone interview with Fort Worth Report, Col. James Valpiani and Lt. Col. Ryan Hefron discussed the intricacies of the artificial intelligence in the co*ckpit and VISTA’s airborne contributions as an experimental platform based at Edwards Air Force Base, a renowned California testing facility where Chuck Yeager broke the speed of sound in his rocket-powered Bell X-1 aircraft in 1947 while the facility was still named Muroc Air Force Base.
Valpiani, commandant of the test pilot school at Edwards, said the choice of an F-16 in the VISTA program is a “good fit” because of the fighter’s aeronautical skills as a high-performance workhorse.
“It gives us a really fantastic research tool for developing AI agents,” he said.
Hefron, program director for DARPA’s Air Combat Evolution program, shared Valpiani’s assessment, saying F-16s have a role “for years to come” in research related to the use of AI in next generation warplanes.
VISTA is an acronym for Variable In-flight Simulator Test Aircraft. The aircraft has been assigned to the test pilot school as part of the Air Force’s 412th Test Wing since the mid-2000s and has been involved in nearly two dozen test flights from December 2022 to September 2023 to advance artificial intelligence.
Hefron declined to reveal the victor of the dogfight encounters, saying the tests were less a matter of “who won or who lost” and more about “how we were testing the system.”
“We’ve seen enough to believe we’re on a good path,” he said.
Hefron describes the experience of transitioning from manually piloting a plane to switching to AI control as “just really cool,” basically the click of a button.
“Three, two, one, AI has the aircraft. … It’s not all that different to passing control to another pilot,” he said. “I just don’t have to say, ‘You have the aircraft.’”
Dave Montgomery is a freelance reporter for the Fort Worth Report.
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