Command chain becomes code

Date (UTC): 2026-06-30

Hi its Sam Chandra - CEO/Founder of Deepsky and the author of this newsletter. Here's my take on todays news - which represents the last couple of weeks of AI in Aviation happenings around the world:

This is the second catch up edition, and the theme is military aviation AI, where the money is largest and the technology moves fastest.

You will notice this issue is heavy with drones and wingmen, and there is a simple reason it belongs in an AI newsletter. One person cannot fly a swarm of aircraft at the same time, so the aircraft have to fly themselves, and that autonomy is the AI doing the work. The same logic sits under the loyal wingman idea, one crew commanding several uncrewed jets that sort out the details on their own. So I have split the issue into three parts: the AI brains and copilots, the loyal wingmen, and the swarms.

The one I would flag for our world is the Beacon AI contract at the top. Most of the military money goes toward removing the pilot, but this is a rare and sizable bet on augmenting one, which is exactly the copilot idea civilian aviation keeps circling, only at a scale no civil company has come close to. And the Scout raise is also very interesting. They are developing a foundation AI model that translates a commanders intent into orders for autonomous weapons and vehicles. Essentially this means a team of data scientists in Southern California are currently shaping the nuance of how militaries of the near future will engage the enemy. More on this in the article.

🧠 The AI Brains and Copilots

SOCOM Puts $49.5M Into Beacon AI's Murdock Copilot

US Special Operations Command signed a four year prototype deal worth up to $49.5 million, with a built in production clause, to field Beacon AI's Murdock pilot assistant across special operations aircraft. This is the one I would watch from a civilian seat, because most military AI money goes toward removing the pilot and this is a rare, sizable contract to augment one, a classic copilot handling parallel cockpit tasks during the high workload phases. It is the same idea civilian aviation keeps circling, at a scale no civil company has come close to.

Scout AI Raises $100M to Build a Foundation Model for Unmanned Warfare

Scout AI closed an oversubscribed $100 million Series A, reported as the largest US defence tech Series A to date, to build Fury, a foundation model that turns a commander's intent into coordinated action across mixed fleets of unmanned systems. What makes this one worth sitting with is that it collapses the chain of command, taking an order from the commander straight down into the operating units and cutting out the middle management layer, the same flattening we have watched inside companies, where middle management are becoming less necessary as AI is able to perform the translation and communication steps that traditional management has their jobs centred on. This is now arriving in the armed forces. It also hands quiet, enormous power to the data scientists who build the model, because they are the ones shaping the actual internal decision mechanisms and behavioural tendencies that the model exhibits. These will manifest as subtle differences in what autonomous weapons are told to do, as the model translates a commanders intent into direct orders.

Shield AI Buys Aechelon to Train Its Autonomy in Simulation

Fresh off a $2 billion financing at a $12.7 billion valuation, Shield AI acquired simulation and sensor modelling specialist Aechelon Technology. The point is to let the Hivemind autonomy log far more of its flight time in a high fidelity synthetic world before it ever gets airborne.

🛩️ The Loyal Wingmen

The Air Force Puts Its Drone Wingmen Into Production

Both Collaborative Combat Aircraft designs went into serial production, with orders for Anduril's FQ-44 Fury and General Atomics' FQ-42 and the "Y" prototype prefix dropped. The Air Force wants at least 150 aircraft by 2030 at about a third of an F-35's cost.

Three Companies Are Left in the Race to Be the CCA's Brain

In a deliberate split from the airframe deals, the Air Force put six firms on an autonomy software pool and advanced Anduril, Shield AI and Collins to a fly off. The software rides a government owned architecture and is bought separately from the jet, so it can be swapped and upgraded on its own.

Boeing's MQ-28 Ghost Bat Proves Its Stealth and Flies in the US

Radar testing confirmed the AI piloted Ghost Bat is harder to detect, and it flew its first three sorties on US soil at Point Mugu. Back in December it had autonomously engaged and shot down an airborne target alongside Australian assets.

Airbus Enters the Race With Ravenstorm

Airbus revealed the U760 Ravenstorm at ILA Berlin, a six tonne uncrewed combat aircraft for air to air, strike and electronic warfare work alongside crewed fighters, aiming for readiness around 2032. It is a serious European entrant in a mostly American field.

Leonardo and Baykar Fly a Manned Jet With a Combat Drone

In the first live trials of their K-SWARM programme, Leonardo flew its M-346 commanding Baykar's uncrewed Kizilelma fighter, which took off and rejoined autonomously before the crew took tactical control. Manned unmanned teaming is clearly going global rather than staying a US story.

Anduril Raises $5B at a $61B Valuation

Anduril, maker of the Fury, closed a $5 billion round that more than doubled its valuation to $61 billion after 2025 revenue doubled to $2.2 billion. If you want the market's verdict on all of this, there it is.

🐝 The Swarms

Shield AI's Hivemind Becomes the Pilot for a $35,000 Swarm

The Pentagon picked Shield AI to put Hivemind onto LUCAS, a roughly $35,000 one way attack drone reverse engineered from the Shahed-136, so one operator can command coordinated groups that re task and reroute around threats themselves. A demonstration of ten or more aircraft is planned for late 2026, with strike decisions kept human.

The Pentagon Runs a 25 Company Drone Swarm Fly Off

The Pentagon's Chief Digital and AI Office put 25 firms on contract for its Crucible 2 "Swarm Forge" event, calling for AI coordinated swarms of at least four drones that find, fix and finish targets with decentralised, inter agent collaboration. Downselects are expected straight out of the Camp Blanding demonstration.

Sam here again, hope you have enjoyed reading this edition. The pattern across all three sections is the same, the fighting edge is moving into software, the airframe is becoming the cheap part and the autonomy is the expensive part that actually matters.

Civil aviation is on the same path, a few years behind and with far more paperwork. That is where Deepsky lives. We are seasoned flight operations people, and we help operators fold AI into how they actually run, sensibly and with the safety case front of mind.

If that is on your mind, contact me at sam@deepskyai.com or visit deepskyai.com.

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