‘…General Atomics Aeronautical Systems has revealed for the first time an artist’s impression of a missile-carrying air-to-air combat drone that it is developing as part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s LongShot program. LongShot will launch from larger UAS or human-crewed aircraft and charge into hostile airspace armed with its own air-to-air missiles, able to fire on enemy targets if it were so commanded.LongShot gives commanders options, just as all remotely operated systems always have. It could initiate a fighter sweep ahead of a strike wave without putting a human crew in danger, or it could join an attack alongside the vanguard with human-crewed warplanes.LongShot also could give legacy aircraft such as bombers a potent new anti-air capability…”