MGI

A Formula 1 engineering firm has unveiled a nearly supersonic combat drone designed to fly wing to wing with fighter jets, and it costs less than a fraction of what those crewed aircraft run. MGI Engineering announced the launch of the T-022 Vortex, describing it as the first UK-built Autonomous Collaborative Platform of its kind, an aircraft that flies without a pilot on board, operates using artificial intelligence, and is designed from the outset to work alongside crewed jets as part of a coordinated team, according to the company's announcement. The performance numbers behind that pitch are what set Vortex apart from earlier generations of military drones. At a maximum takeoff weight of 3,500 kg (7,716 lb), Vortex combines a top speed of Mach 0.85, roughly 1,050 km/h (652 mph) and just under the speed of sound, with a combat radius exceeding 4,000 km (2,485 miles) and a flexible 1,000 kg (2,205 lb) payload capacity spread across four weapon or sensor stations. Earlier autonomous aircraft have typically forced designers to trade one capability for another, sacrificing range to hit a higher top speed or cutting payload to extend endurance, and MGI is positioning Vortex as the first platform in this class able to deliver meaningful amounts of all three simultaneously, putting its performance envelope on par with fast jets that have historically required a pilot. MGI built Vortex around a UK Ministry of Defence initiative known as the Autonomous Collaborative Platforms programme, an effort the RAF often shorthand as the "loyal wingman" concept and which American planners generally call Collaborative Combat Aircraft. The MoD's own Strategic Defence Review, published in June 2025, recommended that the Royal Air Force stay at the leading edge of combat air's evolution by transitioning away from exclusively crewed platforms toward a mixed force of crewed, uncrewed and increasingly autonomous aircraft, with those uncrewed systems expected to operate alongside fourth, fifth and future-generation fighters and even launch from the Royal Navy's Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers. The UK fielded its first operational ACP, an electronic warfare platform called StormShroud Mk1, in May 2025, and the Ministry of Defence has since launched a second tranche of the program specifically seeking electronic warfare aircraft, disposable one-way systems, and platforms built to reduce their radar and infrared signature, giving companies like MGI a defined government customer actively shaping requirements rather than a speculative commercial bet. Mike Gascoyne, CEO of MGI Engineering, framed Vortex as the culmination of a development path the company has followed since its earlier drone programs. "Vortex is the logical next step in the journey we've been on since SkyShark and TigerShark. This isn't an experiment, it is a fully capable collaborative combat aircraft, engineered at a price point that makes affordable air power a reality," Gascoyne said. Gascoyne's own background helps explain why MGI's engineering pitch centers so heavily on speed and cost efficiency rather than incremental improvements on existing military drone designs. Before founding MGI, Gascoyne spent years as a technical director and chief designer across multiple Formula 1 teams, and he has built MGI's entire defense division around applying motorsport engineering discipline, lightweight composite materials and rapid, test-driven prototyping cycles to military hardware rather than following the traditional multiyear defense development timeline. That approach produces tangible cost differences. MGI has priced Vortex between £3 million and £6 million per unit ($4 million to $8 million), a figure the company says represents a fraction of any crewed equivalent, and one that stands in sharp contrast to the tens of millions of dollars a single modern crewed fighter jet typically costs to build. Vortex is powered by a Rolls-Royce Orpheus engine, or a similar powerplant, generating between 12 and 16 kilonewtons of thrust, and MGI says the aircraft is engineered specifically to share data and execute coordinated tasks autonomously alongside crewed pilots, including in contested environments where enemy jamming or cyberattacks might disrupt normal communications links. That resilience against communications disruption has become one of the defining requirements across nearly every Western autonomous aircraft program in development right now, reflecting hard lessons drawn from Russia's extensive use of electronic warfare against Ukrainian drones throughout the war, where a system that goes dumb the moment its signal gets jammed becomes far less useful than one built to keep operating independently. MGI's push into this specific niche follows the company's recent testing of a separate program called TigerShark, conducted under the Ministry of Defence's Project BRAKESTOP, and the company has continued building relationships across the UK and allied defense establishments, including participation in the British Embassy's Defence Industry Breakfast in Ankara alongside a NATO Industry Forum earlier this year. MGI has also publicly welcomed the UK government's Defence Investment Plan, published on June 30, 2026, which commits roughly £5 billion ($6.66 billion) to drones and autonomous systems over the coming years, a funding commitment that directly shapes the market MGI is now competing in for future Vortex orders.

MGI

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UK’s newest combat drone borrows tricks from Formula 1