Pickleball To Power Projection

Imagine launching a jet from a space smaller than a pickleball court and sending it 2,100 nautical miles to jam, scout, and fight—without a pilot on board. That’s XBat: a VTOL, fighter-powered, AI-driven aircraft that challenges everything we assume about runways, range, and risk.

We walk through why a GE F100 fighter engine is a game-changer in an uncrewed jet: it delivers thrust for high-altitude endurance and supersonic dashes, plus the electrical power to run an embedded electronic warfare suite on par with a two-seat Growler. We unpack how full 3D thrust vectoring enables precise vertical recovery and extreme maneuvering with no worries about G-LOC, and why a protected launch system turns improvised pads and ship decks into instant micro airfields. At 55,000 feet, XBat sips fuel and supercharges missile performance; when it needs to, it accelerates, shoots, and slips back to a low-observable profile.

The autonomy is the quiet revolution. Shield AI’s Hivemind, proven in GPS-denied and comms-degraded combat environments, fuses radar, passive sensors, and EO feeds to plan, adapt, and execute with mission intent. Operating as a swarm, multiple XBats multiply jamming effects, create false signatures, and force adversaries into bad choices. That’s where manned-uncrewed teaming shines: an F-35 can orchestrate from standoff as four or five XBats scout, suppress air defenses, engage fighters, and keep jamming after expending munitions. Internally, XBat carries four AMRAAMs for stealth; externally, it scales to smart bombs, cruise missiles, and anti-ship weapons for missions from SEAD to maritime strike.

This isn’t pilot replacement; it’s pilot amplification. By shifting risk to autonomous jets and dispersing launch sites inside standard shipping containers, airpower becomes mobile, layered, and far harder to kill. If you care about next-gen air combat, distributed basing, and the future of F-35 teaming, this deep dive connects the hardware, autonomy, and tactics that make XBat more than another drone—it’s a blueprint for resilient air dominance.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Meet The XBat And Its Promise
• 2:05 Rethinking Range And Combat Radius
• 3:07 Fighter-Grade Engine And Power Budget
• 4:16 High-Altitude Tactics And Missile Kinematics
• 5:29 3D Thrust Vectoring And VTOL Design
• 7:06 Dispersed Basing And Runway Risk
• 8:31 From V-BAT To Hivemind Autonomy
• 10:14 Teaming With F-35 And Swarm Effects
• 11:45 Payload Flexibility And Mission Sets
• 13:15 Speed, Stealth, And Supersonic Dashes
• 14:35 Distributed, Resilient Airpower And Closing

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

What if I told you there's a jet-powered combat aircraft that can take off from a space smaller than a pickleball court, while flying farther than most fighters and carrying the same amount of weapons as an F-A-18 or F-35, and also be able to jam enemy radar like a two-seat growler. And do all of this without a pilot on board or even remote control. Because that aircraft already exists, and it's called the X-Bat. Now, at first glance, it looks like just another unmanned jet. But the deeper you dig, the more it starts breaking assumptions that we've built about air power for the past few decades. For example, where aircraft can launch from, how they fight, and even who is really flying the mission. This isn't a cheap drone. It's not a flying missile truck, and it's definitely not expendable in the way most people think. So in this video, we're going to answer a few big questions. How does a jet within over 2,000 nautical mile radius pull off vertical launch and recovery? Why does the expat use a combat-proven fighter engine instead of a business jet motor like most drones? How can one unmanned aircraft replace the mission of a two-crew electronic attack jet and keep fighting even after it's out of weapons? And most importantly, why this changes the way the F-35 Lightning fights and it doesn't replace it? So join me on this journey, my fellow connoisseur of military aviation, because along the way, we'll talk thrust vectoring that goes beyond the F-22, missive performance at extreme altitude, AI that's already survived GPS-denied combat environments, and yes, why a pickleball court is suddenly big enough to be an airbase. So let's take a look at how this new jet is changing the way we fight. And stick with me, because by the end of this video, you'll understand why Shield AI's Expat isn't just another aircraft program, it's a preview of how the hive mind has awakened. Now before we talk about how the expat fights, we need to talk about how far it can reach. Because range is what turns an interesting aircraft, especially a drone, into a strategic one. When most people hear vertical launch and tailsitter, they assume short legs. Basically a cheap drone and more of a defensive system. Something that's tied very closely to the front line. But that assumption collapses fast. Because the XPat isn't a short-range point defense drone. It has a 2100 nautical mile combat radius, and that's with a mission payload on board. That means this aircraft doesn't just operate from unexpected places, it can actually project power across entire theaters. The XPat can launch from a dispersed pad, climb into thin air at altitude, and stay on station long enough to shape the fight before a manned fighter jet ever crosses the border. And if you're wondering as to how the expat does this, well, we have to take a look under the hood because when you realize how many pounds of thrust this baby can fit under the cowling, you just might be impressed. The XPat uses the GE F-100 engine, which are the same engines that are found in F-16s and F-15s. Now, to say this is a proven engine could be a huge understatement. Being the heart and soul of both the Eagle and the Viper, not to mention the B-1, the F-100 has by some estimates 30 to 40 million flight hours, and that's on a combat-proven military grade engine. But why is this important? Well, it turns out that just about every other CCA, also known as collaborative combat aircraft or drone, today is using business jet engines. Now, while those are great for flying long ranges and staying airborne longer, there are times when you need that extra punch from an afterburner, and more on that in a minute. Another often overlooked aspect of military engines is that they generate a lot more electrical power. And let's just say that this isn't your dad's PC running Doom. The Xpat is a flying supercomputer, and believe me, you're gonna need that extra wattage to power its AI brain, sensors, and electronic jamming capabilities. In fact, the XBAT has so much onboard jamming capability that it can fly the same mission that is flown today by the two-man EF-18 Growler. And from what we can tell, the XBAT's EW suite is built in. So even when the drone goes Winchester and is completely out of weapons, it can remain airborne as a jammer and recon aircraft. Alright, getting back to the engines. In a sort of unintentional retro call out to the early jet fighters from the 1950s, the XBAT has an air intake in the nose, just like the F-86 Sabre and the F-100 Super Sabre used to have. But unlike those early, fuel inefficient 1950s jets, the XBAT instead hauls ass and sips gas. And that's for two main reasons. For one, it doesn't have all the weight and space that are needed for a pilot and environmental systems. And number two, the XBAT likes to cruise at 55,000 feet, where the air is very thin. But flying at high altitudes isn't just about sipping fuel. It also greatly enhances the range of air-to-air missiles. And if you've watched any of that Sidewinder that Growls guys' videos, I'm a fan and a subscriber by the way, then you'll know that in air-to-air combat, if you can launch your missile high and fast, then you'll greatly increase your chance of a takedown. It's one of the very reasons that the F-14 Tomcat and F-15 Eagle were designed to fly high and fast. But the X Bat does more than fly high and sip fuel. It takes that glorious F-100 engine to another level. You can think of it as turning things up to 11, because get ready for it, this jet uses full multiplane thrust vectoring, and it's the only current US jet that does so. Sure, the F-22 has two-dimensional thrust vectoring, which is awesome, but the XBAT uses thrust vectoring in three dimensions. So besides bragging rights and cool airshow performances, why is this important? Well, it allows for maneuvers that most other aircraft can't handle, and since there's no pilot on board, you don't have to worry about G Lock or Blackout. So the XBat can pull harder turns for longer and perform different maneuvers that a human piloted aircraft just simply couldn't. But beyond incredible maneuvers, the full thrust vectoring has a much more practical application. It allows the Xpat to land vertically. And and if this is reminding some of you spaceflight fans of how SpaceX recovers its rockets, well, that's because one of the principal designers of the SpaceX Falcon 9 now works on the XPAT. Thanks, Elon. Now look, the Xpat isn't the first VTOL aircraft. There have been many before it, like the Harrier and the F-35B. And speaking of the B variant of the Lightning, what has been found is that when the Stolvo model of the Lightning takes off or lands vertically, it actually burns or melts the runway underneath it. Because of this, the designers at Shield AI made their vertical launch system or VLS to include a blast shield to protect the surface under it. Okay, but besides again looking cool at an air show, what does vertical takeoff and recovery really change? Well, it turns out that the mere fact that the XP can launch and land vertically is a huge game changer for military planners. Basically, any patch of land or open deck space on most large ships can become an airport. This is a major tactical advantage because one of the biggest vulnerabilities of Air Force bases or even carrier groups is that there is a single point where all conventional aircraft must launch and recover to. If you can damage or disable a runway or carrier flight deck, you've effectively taken out an entire air wing. This is why countries like China, Russia, and even the US have invested so heavily in long-range cruise missiles. Because if even one gets through, it could take out many fighters and bombers, leaving them helpless in their hangars. Now, because of this, the X-Bat was essentially designed dimensionally to fit inside a standard shipping container. And what that means is that you can now have dozens or even hundreds of launch and recovery points that the enemy simply cannot account for. And more than that, not only can the launch pads be in various locations, they can be moved pretty quickly. Now, this concept of a vertical takeoff and landing drone isn't new. In fact, in many ways, XBAT builds on its smaller predecessor, a small ducted fan tail sitter called the V BAT. The US Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard have flown V BAT for years as an expeditionary workhorse from ships and improvised landing zones. It proved that you could take off vertically, transition to forward flight, then land tail first without needing a runway the size of a football field. By comparison, the V Bat and XBAT can take off. By comparison, the V-Bat and XBAT can take off from a pickleball court. And if you've ever played pickleball, well, then you know that pickleball is the most forgiving sport on earth. Small court, slow ball, short sprints. It's really designed so that almost anyone can play without breaking a sweat. The expat, on the other hand, looks at that same pickleball court and says, cool, I'll take it from here. So if pickleball is tennis with the difficulty turned down, then the expat is a fighter jet that turned physics down. One is optimized so you don't need endurance, speed, or power, allegedly. The other is optimized so you don't need a runway, base, or even permission. And just like how a pickleball rally ends because someone steps on the kitchen line, an expat launch ends with the jet punching straight through the sky at full thrust. Getting back to the expat's predecessor, the VBAT, the real secret was not the airframe, it was actually the autonomy. Shield AI, the manufacturer of both the VBAT and the XBAT, installed their AI pilot, codenamed Hivemind, into the VBAT. It flew missions in GPS-tonied environments, in comms degraded skies, and in places where traditional drones would simply fall out of the sky from jamming. And it did this without streaming video back to a pilot or begging for constant inputs. It could navigate, avoid threats, and complete missions using its own best judgment. Much more than just a flight computer, HiveMind is an adaptive, mission-oriented AI. And it's been tested for more than a decade in thousands of hours of simulated and real-world combat conditions. This digital pilot learned to assess, maneuver, and engage under pressure. It was more than reactive. It could anticipate and optimize in real time. And just like the engine, the expat took the Hive Mind AI and cranked it to 11. One of the ways it does this is by making its sensor suite modular. Along with modular components that can be customized for each mission, the onboard combination of multi-mode radar, passive targeting sensors, and electro-optical systems constantly feeds data into the Hive Mind. This allows the XBAT to jam radar, deceive targeting systems, and generate false signatures. And when operating in a swarm, these EW effects multiply. So what this means for XPAT is that inheriting this sophisticated AI and updated sensor suite allows the jet to fly independently or work with manned fighters like the F-35 on collaborative missions. Think of an F-35 flying with four or five expats. The expats could scout ahead at 55,000 feet, undetected, while the lightning pilot circles at a safe distance, gathering intel and building a picture. The expats could then take out enemy air defenses, neutralize enemy fighters, and then the lightning pilot could go on to perform the strike mission on the critical target or even do a damage assessment overfly. And when the expats have expended their munitions, they could stay in the area jamming and protecting the F-35 as it passes through. The lightning would return to its airfield or carrier, and the expats could land anywhere there's a recovery platform setup. Alright, now that we've discussed the range, AI capabilities, and recovery advantages, the next question becomes unavoidable. What can the expat actually bring with it? On paper, the XPAT's payload puts it in the same class as an FA18 Hornet or an F-35 Lightning, and that alone should reset our expectations. Because internally, the XBAT can carry four AMRAMs, allowing it to operate in contested airspace while preserving a low observable profile. That means it can quietly patrol, screen manned aircraft, or take the first shots in an air-to-air fight without lighting itself up on enemy radar. But the real flexibility for the X-Bat comes when stealth is no longer the priority. External hard points open the door to nearly the entire modern air-launched arsenal. The X-Bat can carry Laz Rams, precision guided smart bombs, like J DAMs, long-range cruise missiles, and even anti-ship weapons designed to threaten surface combatants far beyond the horizon. In other words, it can be tailored for the mission, stealthy and selective, or loud and very heavily armed. And this is where the expat really starts to separate itself from most unmanned aircraft. It isn't single purpose. In one sortie, it can act as an air-to-air escort, in the next as a strike platform, and in another as an electronic warfare or recon asset. It can kick down the door by suppressing enemy air defenses, stay behind a jam and gather intelligence, or push forward to hunt threats before manned aircraft ever cross the line. So, from a strategic sense, what we're saying is that the expat isn't carrying weapons, it's really carrying options. And in modern air combat, options are more decisive than raw firepower. Because we all know that no battle plan has ever survived contact with the enemy. Now, we need to take a minute here to discuss speed and stealth because it turns out that they're more related than most people think. Alright, don't expect the expat to win any air races, but it does cruise at Mach 0.85, and it can dash supersonic. And here's the thing, you don't want to fly around at Mach Jesus for two major reasons. When you light those afterburners, you quadruple your fuel burn, and as a result, greatly reduce the time you can be airborne and in the fight. The other reason is that going supersonic greatly increases your radar cross-section or RCS, which reduces your stealth. You see, flying supersonic has been described as creating a bloom for your RCS, so you're much more likely to be detected when doing so. So why would you ever want to go supersonic? Well, it comes back to the whole missile performance thing. Dashing up to a supersonic speed allows the XBAT to launch its missiles at high speed, then power down and go stealth again. It can also be used to escape enemy airspace or get back over an air border into safety. So at the end of the day, what you're really looking at here isn't just the new aircraft or even a new drone. This is really a shift in how air power is applied. Now, despite what many people think, the expat is not going to replace the pilot in the cockpit. Instead, like any good tool, it's going to reshape the battle space around them. By bringing multiple expats to the fight, by bringing multiple expats to the fight, it'll allow the F-35 to greatly extend its reach while the drones absorb the risk, and by doing so will turn air combat into a coordinated system instead of a single jet making a single decision at a single moment. This is where air warfare is really becoming distributed, layered, and even resilient. You've got fewer fixed runways that you depend on, fewer predictable patterns. There are more options now for commanders and more survivability for pilots. And that's why programs like Shield, AI's, Expat really matter. Not because they look futuristic and cool, but because they quietly are changing the rules of the fight. Now, if you want more deep dives like this where we look past the headlines and really break down what these aircraft mean, make sure you're subscribed to this channel. And if you want to go even deeper, consider becoming a channel member or patreon. Members help directly support this kind of long form research and get access to exclusive content and behind the scenes stuff. Either way, thanks for flying along, and I'll see you in the next one. Now you know.com