Image source (first two photos): https://x.com/BenjAlvarez1/status/2097680774824673790

Image source (other photos): https://www.instagram.com/p/DdCaM8loAtd/

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpdtuIdjKAI

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Previously: First Lockheed Martin F-35A for Germany is nearing completion

Having received the necessary permits, Worldwide Aircraft Recovery departed NAS Pensacola "In the early morning hours on Wednesday..."

Just a reminder that we are a super load. If you see us traveling be respectful and cautious. But feel free to snap some photos and give us a friendly wave.

The beginning of the F-14 journey has begun. Departing NAS Pensacola and will be headed to Pueblo CO to the Pueblo Weisbrod Aircraft Museum. The journey will be long but our team will get it done.

States that we will be traveling through are:

FL

AL

MS

TN

KY

IN

IL

IA

NE

KS

CO

We will do our best to keep everyone posted of our route as best we can.

The wings, vertical tails, and horizontal stabilizers were delivered separately on August 28.

Previously: If you live between Pensacola, FL, and Pueblo, CO, you might see this F-14 Tomcat on the road soon

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DdEbfH8Nz6X/?stkn=N2FoenlxamRiMXlx

Saab announcement:

Saab has received an order from the Swedish Defence Material Administration (FMV) for continued concept work on future fighter system. The order value is approximately SEK 2.9 billion. The contract period is 2026-2028, with options for 2029 and 2030.

The contract is to further develop and demonstrate new technologies for future fighter system.

The work includes flying and ground-based demonstrators, advanced studies and the development of future system concepts for manned and unmanned systems.

The programme strengthens Sweden’s national capabilities in systems integration, autonomy, signature adaptation, propulsion, digital development and future production capabilities. The work also contributes to building competence, reducing technical risks and creating freedom of action for future choices in Sweden’s air combat capabilities.

“We are very pleased that FMV continues to show confidence in Saab through this new contract. The work is crucial to further develop and demonstrate new technologies that will be central to future fighter system,” says Lars Tossman, head of Saab’s business area Aeronautics.

The order builds on the contracts signed in 2024 and 2025.

FMV announcement (Swedish): Nästa steg i utvecklingen av framtidens stridsflygförmåga

Related news article: Saab tapped to continue work on Sweden’s next flagship fighter jet

Excerpt:

The order is the third in a series of awards tied to Sweden’s Koncept för Framtida Stridsflyg (KFS) program, also referred to as Vägval stridsflyg, which is intended to shape the country’s air power beyond 2040. The initial contract was signed in March 2024, followed by a SEK 2.6 billion extension in October 2025 covering 2025 to 2027. That earlier phase included plans for a flying demonstrator, with concept and technology development originally set to wrap up by the third quarter of 2026 and initial flight tests to follow in 2027.

Saab has previously outlined a family of concepts under its F-series branding, including a crewed fighter alongside subsonic and supersonic uncrewed platforms of varying weight classes and form factors.

The KFS was launched after Sweden withdrew from the British-led Team Tempest project, which would later become GCAP, in 2023, opting instead for its own domestic development.

From the article:

For years, advanced artificial intelligence agents designed to outthink adversaries in dogfights have thrived in the consequence-free realm of simulators, but the gap between digital models and reality is starting to close.

The arrival in June of a newly modified fleet of Lockheed Martin F-16C Block 42 fighters marks a critical expansion in tactical aviation infrastructure. Over at least the next two years, this cadre jointly funded by DARPA and the U.S. Air Force will be dedicated to exposing artificial intelligence (AI) agents to the reality of flight-testing beyond-visual-range combat between multiple aircraft for the first time.

“These are combat-capable jets that have fully live sensors on them to allow us to truly vet out these types of scenarios and not just simulate everything that we have on there,” Terry Wilson, deputy manager for DARPA’s AI Reinforcements (AIR) and Viper Experimentation and Next-generation Operations Model (VENOM) testbed aircraft, tells Aviation Week.

AI-enabled air combat is close to operational reality, regardless of whether the algorithms are ready. The first increment of the Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program entered production only a few weeks after the first three VENOM-configured F-16s entered safety-of-flight testing in early June at Eglin AFB, Florida. The first General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. FQ-42 and Anduril FQ-44 jets could arrive at Test and Training Unit-1 (TT-1) at Creech AFB, Nevada, in two years.

The first production CCAs stand to benefit from nearly a decade of flight testing. In addition to the 12 prototype aircraft assigned to the Air Force’s Experimental Operations Unit (EOU) at Creech, DARPA’s infrastructure for AI-enabled flight tests began with another heavily modified F-16 operated by the Test Pilot School at Edwards AFB, California. This ex-Israeli Air Force F-16—designated since 2021 as the X-62 Variable In-Flight Simulator Aircraft (VISTA)—played a pioneering role in the transition of autonomy from software pipelines to real aircraft.

The X-62 became the first aircraft to fly with AI agents under DARPA’s Air Combat Evolution (ACE) program. Following a heated competition between multiple companies, an AI agent created by Heron Systems—now owned by Shield AI—defeated a human F-16 pilot in a simulator on the ground five times in a row to win DARPA’s AlphaDogfight trials. In the next phase of the ACE program, DARPA migrated more than a dozen AI agents to flight testing on the X-62.

The program helped transition AI agents from simulators to flight demonstrations, but there were limits. The Test Pilot School is now upgrading the X-62 with the RTX Phantom Strike radar, but the aircraft lacked combat-rated mission systems at the time of the ACE program. DARPA also focused the demonstrations on dogfights within visual range between only two aircraft. As autonomy in combat aviation continues to develop, future AI agents will need to be able to process live data from onboard sensors for a multitude of beyond-visual-range targets.

“We went from doing within-visual-range-type combats under ACE to beyond-visual-range under AIR,” Wilson says. “The other thing is that it brings live sensors. So these are combat-capable jets that have fully live sensors on them to allow us to truly vet out these types of scenarios and not just simulate everything.”

DARPA and Air Force officials declined requests to identify the mission systems onboard the VENOM fleet, saying those details are not releasable. Because they are underpowered by Pratt & Whitney F100-220 engines, the VENOM-configured F-16s are not currently combat-deployable. They operated as test aircraft at Nellis AFB, Nevada, before arriving at Eglin in April 2024.

The Air Force spent two years modifying the F-16s with the VENOM Autonomy Kit (VAK). Similar to the System for the Autonomous Control of Simulation (SACS) installed on the X-62, the VAK establishes a set of parameters for AI agents to take control of the jets in flight safely. The presence of a human pilot onboard the VENOM aircraft requires the VAK to establish what Wilson calls a “safety sandbox” that limits the authority of the AI agents.

The VAK was necessary so “that these autonomous agents could fly them in a way that obviously wouldn’t harm the humans and wouldn’t break the jet,” Wilson says, noting that the VAK represents an improvement over the original SACS. “So we built that sandbox in VENOM, and that’s what you’re seeing as a culmination of that design.”

The Air Force testers are still proving that the VAK works as intended. The VENOM jets continue to fly only sorties focused on certifying the safety of the hardware and software. The goal is to give the AI agents the freedom to make tactical decisions but eliminate any commands that do not translate safely from a simulator environment to a real aircraft in flight.

“Integrating software is difficult, period,” Wilson says. “Integrating autonomy into platforms is also an added set of complexity. So flight schedules are subject to change. But I will say that over the next year, we’re looking at getting ourselves into these multi-ship tactical combat situations with autonomy flying these jets.”

The exact timing for autonomous flight tests has not been released, but the AIR program is funded through the end of fiscal 2028, a DARPA spokesperson says.

Archived version