British aircraft carrier to fly combat drone within 18 months

The Royal Navy’s ambition to fly an uncrewed combat jet from one of its aircraft carriers has been given a firmer timeline, with the Ministry of Defence telling Parliament it intends to conduct an embarked demonstration of a Collaborative Combat Aircraft from a Queen Elizabeth-class carrier within the next eighteen months.

The intention itself is not new, having been set out by the First Sea Lord, General Sir Gwyn Jenkins, at the DSEI defence exhibition in September 2025, when he told industry the Royal Navy intended to launch its first jet-powered collaborative platform as a concept demonstrator off a Queen Elizabeth-class carrier “as soon as next year”, and what has changed in the months since is the context around it, with the latest commitment now restated on the record by a minister, attached to a defined eighteen-month window, and made explicitly conditional on the Defence Investment Plan, the spending document over which the Defence Secretary and Armed Forces Minister both resigned a fortnight ago.

The Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry, Luke Pollard, set out the plan in a written answer to the Conservative MP for Huntingdon, Ben Obese-Jecty, who had asked what progress had been made under Project VANQUISH, the effort to deliver a short take-off and landing, jet-powered autonomous platform able to operate from the carriers.

Pollard said progress on the project was “focused on feasibility, industry engagement, and option development ahead of any acquisition decisions”. While investment decisions remained “subject to the outcome of the Defence Investment Plan”, he said, the Royal Navy, working with industry, “intends to conduct an embarked demonstration of an uncrewed Collaborative Combat Aircraft from a Queen Elizabeth Class carrier within the next 18 months”.

Project VANQUISH itself is not new, having been trailed as the Royal Navy’s route towards operating autonomous jets from its carriers, but the commitment to actually put a Collaborative Combat Aircraft onto a carrier deck within a defined window moves the programme from concept towards a concrete trial, even as the larger questions of what is bought, and when, remain unresolved.

A Collaborative Combat Aircraft is an uncrewed jet designed to fly alongside crewed aircraft, carrying sensors, weapons or electronic warfare payloads and acting as a force multiplier for a smaller number of crewed platforms. For the Royal Navy, fielding such an aircraft from the carriers would expand the reach and mass of the air wing beyond the F-35B Lightning, the only fast jet the carriers currently embark, and would fit the wider Hybrid Air Wing concept set out in the Strategic Defence Review, in which crewed jets and helicopters operate alongside uncrewed aircraft.

The carriers have already been used as trials platforms for uncrewed flight, with fixed-wing drones having been flown from and recovered to their decks in earlier demonstrations as the Royal Navy works through the practical challenges of launching and landing autonomous aircraft from a ship at sea without catapults or arrestor wires.

The familiar caveat hangs over the programme, with Pollard tying any acquisition decision to the Defence Investment Plan, the unpublished spending document on which a long line of capability choices now depends, from the Crowsnest early warning replacement to the future of the surface fleet.