The Navy's Carrier Autonomous Combat Aircraft, Catapult Launches, Arrested Landings, and What It Means When a Machine Traps on a Moving Deck

The U.S. Navy has formally asked industry what it would take to build an autonomous aircraft capable of full carrier operations - including catapult launches, arrested landings, and carrying up to 10,000 pounds of external weapons. The Request for Information calls for two flying prototypes, marking the clearest signal yet that the Navy is ready to move beyond autonomous tankers and toward autonomous combat aircraft.

What the Navy’s RFI Actually Requires

The RFI specifies three core technical requirements, each representing a serious and distinct engineering challenge.

Catapult launches. Carrier aircraft accelerate from zero to flying speed in roughly two seconds via electromagnetic or steam catapult. An autonomous system must sequence the launch, hold the correct attitude off the bow, and transition immediately into a controlled climb - with no human input at the controls.

Arrested landings. The tailhook must engage a one-and-a-half-inch steel cable, decelerating the aircraft from flying speed to zero in about two seconds. The autonomous system must fly the approach, manage energy, and place the aircraft precisely in the wire engagement zone. Not approximately right. Exactly right.

Combat payload. The RFI specifies an external weapons capacity of up to 10,000 pounds. For context, an F-16 Fighting Falcon carries a maximum external stores load of around 12,000 pounds. This is a purpose-built strike or air-to-air platform, not a lightly armed reconnaissance drone.

Why Carrier Landings Are the Hardest Problem in Aviation

Landing on a carrier is widely regarded as the most demanding act of precision flying performed routinely by any aviator in the world. The aircraft descends at over 600 feet per minute onto a moving, pitching deck. From the moment it crosses the deck edge, the crew has roughly three and a half seconds to either catch a wire or go to full power for a bolter. The margin for error is measured in inches and fractions of seconds.

Making that problem autonomous requires far more than a precise autopilot. The aircraft must know exactly where the deck is at all times, compensate for ship speed, heading, and pitch, and do all of it in any weather - including at night, and in environments where electronic systems may be jammed or degraded.

The Navy’s solution involves the Joint Precision Approach and Landing System (JPALS), which provides precision approach guidance adapted for shipboard use, analogous to an Instrument Landing System. An autonomous aircraft must fuse JPALS data with its own inertial navigation and handle real-time deck motion - continuously, reliably, in operational conditions.

How the Navy Got Here: From the X-47B to the MQ-25

This RFI doesn’t come out of nowhere. The Navy has been building toward this capability for over a decade.

In 2013, the Northrop Grumman X-47B became the first autonomous aircraft to execute a successful arrested landing on a carrier - the USS George H.W. Bush. It launched and trapped. The fundamental technology worked.

The program then shifted direction. Rather than pursuing an autonomous strike aircraft, the Navy prioritized an autonomous tanker. That became the Boeing MQ-25 Stingray, which is now operational. The Stingray carries fuel, not weapons, but it proved that an autonomous aircraft could integrate into real carrier flight operations - not just as a one-time test event, but as a working part of the air wing. A Super Hornet or F-35C with an MQ-25 in the loop can project power significantly further from the carrier.

The new RFI is the next rung on that ladder: autonomous tanker to autonomous fighter.

The Procedural Challenge Beyond the Airframe

The aircraft itself is only half the problem. Carrier flight operations run on a tightly choreographed human system - the marshal stack, Case I and Case III recovery procedures, and constant coordination between the ship, the air boss in primary flight control, and the landing signal officers.

An autonomous combat aircraft must either communicate with that system the way a piloted aircraft does, or operate on a dedicated datalink while humans monitor from the ship. The RFI is designed to surface exactly those questions - what integration looks like, what the human-machine interface requires, and where the decision authority sits.

Autonomous Weapons and the Human-in-the-Loop Question

A carrier-based autonomous aircraft carrying 10,000 pounds of ordnance is, by any definition, a lethal autonomous weapons system. The military maintains established policies requiring a human in or on the decision loop for lethal force. An aircraft that launches autonomously and carries weapons does not mean it fires autonomously - those are separate questions with separate answers. But those answers will shape what this aircraft ultimately becomes, and they will be central to any formal development program that follows the RFI.

Why This Matters Beyond Naval Aviation

Military aviation has always been where the edge of the envelope gets pushed hardest, and the technology developed there has a consistent track record of migrating into the broader aviation world. The systems enabling carrier autonomous operations - precision navigation, automated approach guidance, sensor fusion, human-machine interface design - are the same building blocks appearing in commercial and general aviation autonomy programs.

Autonomy in aviation is not a future development. The MQ-25 Stingray is flying operational missions now. The question being asked by this RFI is how far and how fast the capability extends - and whether a machine can ultimately do what has long been considered the hardest thing a pilot can do.

Key Takeaways

• The U.S. Navy issued an RFI for two flying prototypes of a carrier-based autonomous combat aircraft with catapult launch, arrested landing, and up to 10,000 lbs of external weapons capacity
• The Northrop Grumman X-47B successfully completed an autonomous arrested landing on the USS George H.W. Bush in 2013, proving the fundamental technology is achievable
• The Boeing MQ-25 Stingray is already operational as an autonomous carrier tanker, establishing the procedural and systems foundation this program builds on
• Autonomous carrier landing requires fusing JPALS data with inertial navigation while compensating for continuous deck motion, in any weather and potentially degraded electronic environments
• An autonomous aircraft carrying weapons is not the same as autonomous weapons employment - human-in-the-loop requirements will be a defining constraint of any development program that follows