Northrop Grumman FQ-48 Talon

In December 2025, Northrop Grumman announced its Talon CCA (Collaborative Combat Aircraft) project. Reportedly in developed for 15 months, it builds on NG's design for the USAF's CCA Increment 1 specification, with an emphasis on reduced weight and complexity (for lower costs and faster construction). Not long after Talon was unveiled, the USAF announced that it had allocated the official designation YFQ-48A to the forthcoming prototype.

Photo: Northrop Grumman

YFQ-48A

While Northrop Grumman has published several detailed renderings of the Talon, together with some quite generic statements about its modular design, no details about its equipment and performance characteristics have been made public. The first flight of the YFQ-48A is planned for the last quarter of 2026.

Designation Note: The design number 48 is out of sequence in the Q-series, but was most likely chosen to follow on from F-47 in the F-series.

Specifications

No details about the characteristics of the FQ-48 are available.

Main Sources

[1] Northrop Grumman "Project Talon" Website
[2] The War Zone, Joseph Trevithick: Talon Emerges From The Shadows, December 2025
[3] U.S. Air Force: Air Force designates Northrop Grumman’s Talon prototype as YFQ-48A, December 2025

Back to Directory of U.S. Military Rockets and Missiles, Appendix 2

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Last Updated: 22 December 2025