Dassault Aviation has formalized an industrial cooperation agreement with Portugal’s national aerospace association, advancing its campaign to replace the Portuguese Air Force’s aging fleet of 28 Lockheed Martin F-16AM/BM Fighting Falcon aircraft.

Signed on September 23, 2026, at the French Embassy in Lisbon, the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) connects the French manufacturer with AED Cluster Portugal. In a press release issued the same day, Dassault stated the agreement will explore potential areas of cooperation between the Portuguese industrial sector and the primary Rafale program partners, which include Thales and Safran.

The fighter replacement program

The Portuguese Air Force (Força Aérea Portuguesa) is currently evaluating options to modernize its combat capabilities as its F-16AM/BM fleet nears the end of its service life. In December 2025, the Portuguese Air Force Chief of Staff publicly indicated a preference for the United States-built Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II. The Portuguese Ministry of Defense has not finalized a formal decision or purchase order, leaving the procurement process open to competing bids.

This pending status has allowed European aerospace manufacturers to pitch alternative platforms. Dassault Aviation officially submitted its bid proposing the Rafale fighter to the Portuguese Government and Air Force in July 2026.

Leveraging local industry

The MoU with AED Cluster Portugal, an organization comprising more than 180 companies, universities, and research institutes, represents a calculated offset strategy. By offering to integrate Portuguese firms into the global supply chain for the Rafale, Dassault aims to provide localized economic benefits to support its bid.

Dassault is not alone in this approach. Swedish manufacturer Saab has proposed the JAS-39 Gripen E, offering technology transfers and local production partnerships with Portuguese aerospace company OGMA. Other European manufacturers, including Airbus with the Eurofighter, have also emphasized European defense sovereignty in their respective pitches to Lisbon.

AirPro News analysis

The competition in Portugal highlights a recurring tension in European defense procurement. On one side is the operational pull of the F-35A, which offers fifth-generation capabilities and seamless interoperability with a growing number of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies. On the other side is the strategic push to sustain the European defense industrial base.

Dassault’s MoU is designed to shift the procurement conversation from purely military specifications to broader economic and political benefits. By promising high-value aerospace work to local industry, European bidders are attempting to make their platforms politically attractive to government decision-makers, even when military leadership has signaled a preference for the American alternative.

Sources: Dassault Aviation

BAE Systems Australia and California-based aviation technology firm Skyryse have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to integrate their respective flight control technologies, targeting the development of next-generation autonomous and optionally piloted Commercial-Aircraft.

In a press release issued on September 23, 2026, the companies confirmed that Skyryse’s software-defined SkyOS will serve as the preferred aircraft operating system and flight control logic provider for joint projects. These projects will utilize BAE Systems Australia’s Vehicle Management System (VMS) to address growing demand across government, defense, and commercial sectors for modernized, highly automated fleets.

Integrating SkyOS and VMS architectures

The partnership brings together two distinct approaches to flight automation. BAE Systems Australia has spent 40 years developing sovereign autonomy technologies through its VMS architecture. By pairing this hardware and systems integration experience with Skyryse’s software platform, the companies intend to develop capabilities for both rotary and fixed-wing aircraft, including future clean-sheet designs.

Andrew Gresham, Managing Director of Defence Delivery for BAE Systems Australia, stated that the collaboration will allow the defense contractor to leverage its decades of VMS development to grow collective opportunities in the autonomous aircraft market.

“Together, Skyryse’s Software-defined SkyOS and BAE Systems Australia’s Vehicle Management System bring complementary capabilities that can help deliver the next generation of optionally piloted and autonomous aircraft for our customers in an increasingly competitive and evolving environment,” Gresham said.

Skyryse designed SkyOS to combine human-rated flight software with autonomous capabilities within a certifiable platform. Mark Groden, Founder and CEO of Skyryse, noted that software is becoming the defining technology in aviation as operators look to accelerate the adoption of autonomous capabilities.

Expanding autonomous capabilities in defense and commercial sectors

Both companies bring recent momentum in uncrewed and highly automated flight to the MoU. In April 2025, BAE Systems Australia entered into a 10-year agreement with Boeing Defence Australia to integrate its VMS into the MQ-28 Ghost Bat uncrewed aircraft. The Ghost Bat program represents a major push into collaborative combat aircraft for the defense sector.

Skyryse has similarly expanded its footprint in both defense and civil aviation. In June 2026, the company announced a Partnerships with Robinson Helicopter Company to integrate SkyOS into the Robinson R66, aiming to develop a Group 4 unmanned aircraft system (UAS) for defense applications. Earlier in the year, on March 5, 2026, Skyryse revealed plans to introduce a universal emergency autoland capability for Helicopters and airplanes directly within the SkyOS architecture.

The California firm is backed by significant capital to fund its certification efforts. In February 2026, Skyryse closed a Series C funding round that raised $300 million, bringing the company’s valuation to over $1.15 billion.

AirPro News analysis

We view this Memorandum of Understanding as a clear indicator of how traditional defense primes are adapting to the rapid pace of software development in the aviation sector. By partnering with a well-funded technology firm like Skyryse, BAE Systems Australia can potentially bypass the lengthy internal development cycles typically required for next-generation flight control logic. Skyryse gains a highly credible, established defense partner to help validate and scale its SkyOS platform beyond civil applications.

The explicit mention of “certifiable” software highlights the primary hurdle for autonomous aviation. The industry has proven that uncrewed flight is technically feasible, but certifying those systems for mixed airspace and human-rated operations remains the critical bottleneck. This partnership appears structured specifically to tackle that Certification challenge by combining BAE Systems Australia’s systems engineering rigor with Skyryse’s software architecture.

Sources: BAE Systems Australia

The U.S. Navy has successfully demonstrated software that translates human-generated mission plans directly into executable instructions for autonomous combat aircraft, a capability designed to reduce operator workload and accelerate the integration of uncrewed systems into fleet operations.

In a press release issued on September 22, 2026, the Navy announced the successful test of its Collaborative Autonomy Mission Planning (CAMP) system. The demonstration took place during the Gray Flag 2026 test event at the Point Mugu Sea Range in California, utilizing a single General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. (GA-ASI) MQ-20 Avenger as a surrogate aircraft.

Bridging human planning and autonomous execution

The CAMP software allows mission planners to use the established Collaborative Mission Planning Continuum (CMPC) to direct autonomous platforms. This eliminates the requirement to manually translate operational plans into platform-specific code, a process that traditionally requires significant time and specialized technical knowledge.

Capt. Todd “Toby” Keith, Program Manager for the Navy’s Strike Planning & Execution Systems (PMX-281), stated that the demonstration connected current mission planning methods with future autonomous execution.

“CAMP is about making autonomy more usable by integrating into mission environments with both manned and unmanned platforms,” Keith said. “This demonstration showed how we can connect the way operators plan missions today in the CMPC with the way autonomous aircraft will execute those missions. That can reduce the burden on our operators, improve interoperability and help bring collaborative autonomy closer to operational use.”

Building on previous autonomous combat tests

The September 2026 demonstration builds upon the Navy’s Experimental Platform for Intelligent Combat (EPIC) initiative. In September 2025, the Navy partnered with Shield AI under the EPIC program to pilot a Kratos Defense & Security Solutions BQM-177A target drone in GPS-denied environments using the company’s Hivemind technology.

The U.S. military is actively expanding its deployment of uncrewed systems in combat scenarios. In July 2026, the U.S. 5th Fleet’s Task Force 59 utilized three Corsair unmanned surface vessels to strike a submarine and maintenance facility at the Bandar Abbas naval base in Iran. This marked the first time American forces employed sea drones in active combat operations.

The MQ-20 Avenger utilized in the Point Mugu test also serves as a testbed for the U.S. Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program. This dual usage highlights cross-service efforts to develop uncrewed platforms capable of operating alongside human-piloted fighters.

AirPro News analysis

The successful CAMP demonstration represents a critical step in solving one of the primary bottlenecks in autonomous warfare: the human-machine interface. While autonomous flight control has matured significantly, the administrative and technical burden of programming these aircraft for specific, dynamic missions has remained high. By allowing operators to use existing planning architectures like the CMPC, the Navy is lowering the barrier to entry for deploying uncrewed assets.

Questions remain regarding scalability and deployment timelines. The Navy has not publicly disclosed when the CAMP system will reach operational fleet units. The software has currently only been publicly tested on a single MQ-20 surrogate. We expect future testing will need to demonstrate the system’s ability to handle multiple, disparate autonomous platforms simultaneously before it can be considered ready for complex, multi-domain combat environments.

Sources: U.S. Navy