The setting was pure theatre. In the hangar of HMS Prince of Wales, in Oslo for the International Sea Power Conference, the First Sea Lord shared the stage with a scale model of an American drone wingman. In the audience sat navy chiefs from across northern Europe and, by his count, more than 700 delegates.

On 10 November 2026, General Sir Gwyn Jenkins used that stage to announce that the Royal Navy will work towards a demonstration of Northrop Grumman’s Talon uncrewed jet in UK waters in 2027, “including a launch from the carrier”. He said he would sign a statement of intent with the company aboard the same ship two days later, on 12 November.

The Royal Navy Talon drone plan puts an aircraft and a year to an ambition Jenkins has voiced since 2025: jet-powered collaborative combat aircraft flying from the two Queen Elizabeth-class carriers. It is also, for now, a promise of a trial rather than a purchase.

A promise kept, on paper at least

Jenkins had set himself a public deadline, and he reminded the room of it. “Last year, I said I wanted the first of those CCAs to be launched from the carrier flight deck by next year,” he said, according to the speech text published by the UK government. “When I said that, there was probably a bit of scepticism in the room.”

The answer he brought to Oslo was specific. “In two days’ time, on this carrier, I will sign a statement of intent with our friends at Northrop Grumman to prepare their TALON demonstrator for trials with the Royal Navy under Project VANQUISH,” he said, adding: “That demonstrator is here with me on this stage.” Navy Lookout, posting from the conference, identified the airframe beside him as a one-third scale mock-up.

The trials, Jenkins said, “will give us the evidence we need to understand how uncrewed combat aircraft can operate safely and effectively alongside the existing air wing.” Today that air wing means F-35B Lightning II fighters, Merlin helicopters and Wildcats. The drones are meant to put the “Hybrid” into what the Royal Navy calls its Hybrid Air Wing.

Launch is promised. Landing is the hard part

Read the wording closely. The speech commits to a demonstration “including a launch from the carrier”. It says nothing about bringing the aircraft back aboard. Specialist outlets, Navy Lookout among them, note that it is unclear whether a recovery to the deck will be attempted in 2027.

That matters because the Queen Elizabeth-class ships have neither catapults nor arresting wires. They were built around the short take-off and vertical landing F-35B, which leaves the deck via a ski jump and normally comes back aboard with a vertical landing. France’s Charles de Gaulle, by contrast, launches its jets with steam catapults. Project VANQUISH was framed from the start around a jet-powered drone able to fly from the British carriers without either system.

Navy Lookout points out that the original VANQUISH request to industry asked for an aircraft that could both launch and recover aboard a Queen Elizabeth-class carrier without that equipment. It also questions whether Talon’s undercarriage, borrowed from an existing aircraft type, would need adapting for repeated landings on a moving deck. Northrop will first want land-based flying hours before attempting anything of the sort.

There is a precedent for the first half of the job. In November 2023, General Atomics’ propeller-driven Mojave took off from HMS Prince of Wales off the US east coast and landed back on board. The Royal Navy described it as the largest uncrewed aircraft ever launched from one of its carriers. Talon is a different animal: a jet, designed to keep pace with fighters rather than loiter on surveillance.

An American jet with a European audience

Talon was designed by Northrop Grumman and its subsidiary Scaled Composites and paid for with company money. The US Air Force designated it YFQ-48A, and it made its first flight at Mojave on 3 October 2026, a sortie Northrop describes as fully autonomous from taxi to landing. It is powered by a single Pratt & Whitney PW500 turbofan, and Northrop says it is about 450 kg lighter, with roughly half the parts, of its earlier collaborative combat aircraft design.

That an American demonstrator should headline a Royal Navy speech in a Norwegian port says a good deal about how Europe’s navies now work. The same day, Jenkins and his fellow chiefs from the Joint Expeditionary Force signed an agreement under the JEF Northern Navies Initiative, a ten-nation grouping led by Britain. The carrier, the drone and the alliance were all on show in the same hangar.

Yet the speech was also a pitch for British industry. Jenkins argued that the Hybrid Navy “can create real economic opportunity for Britain”. Navy Lookout notes that the statement of intent leaves open both the choice of any operational aircraft and how much work would be done in the UK. A trial, in other words, is not an order.

What to watch before 2027

The first milestone is the signature itself, due aboard HMS Prince of Wales on 12 November. After that, the questions are practical: how quickly Talon builds up flying hours ashore, whether the Royal Navy names a carrier and a date for the 2027 trial, and whether recovery joins launch on the test card.

The evidence will then feed the Royal Navy’s wider plan for an air wing of crewed jets, helicopters and drones. Smaller craft are already flying from the decks: last week Afterburner covered HMS Queen Elizabeth launching a Nyan strike drone and landing a Tekever AR5. A jet-powered wingman is the far bigger step, and Jenkins has now tied his name to a date.

Sources: UK Government (speech text of General Sir Gwyn Jenkins, 10 November 2026), Navy Lookout, UK Defence Journal, The Aviationist, Northrop Grumman, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems.

Header photo: FLEET-20240311-XE0146-010.jpg by Ministry of Defence, OGL v1.0, cropped, via Wikimedia Commons