Shield AI Names Kansas and Washington the Flight Test and Production Homes of X-BAT

September 30, 2026

Shield AI today named the two sites that will build and test X-BAT, its AI-piloted fighter jet designed to take off and land vertically. X-Forge 2, at the Newton City-County Airport in Kansas, is the flight test and sustainment home for the aircraft. X-Forge 3, based in Des Moines, Washington, just south of Seattle, is the production home. Together with X-Forge 1 in Frisco, Texas, the three sites carry X-BAT from prototype through delivery and through the life of the fleet.

Every X-BAT will complete production acceptance testing in Newton before delivery, and customers will conduct their own acceptance flights there. Newton will also support development flight testing and serve as the center for maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) for the fleet. Shield AI currently leases hangar and office space and approximately 10 acres at Newton City/County Airport and is working with the City of Newton and Harvey County to expand its footprint and develop a larger hangar.

South-central Kansas has built aircraft since the 1920s, and its training pipeline runs through Wichita State University, WSU Tech, the National Center for Aviation Training and Hutchinson Community College. Shield AI committed to Newton in 2025, when it first showed the X-BAT design to the public, and has been standing the site up since.

In Des Moines, Shield AI has signed its lease and is building the site out now. Hiring for the program has shifted to the region and is underway. Des Moines is the company’s first Puget Sound site, and Shield AI expects its footprint in the region to grow as production rates climb. King County has more than 45,000 aerospace workers at more than 400 companies, and Washington’s supplier base runs past 1,500 firms. Shield AI evaluated several regions and chose Washington for that workforce.

“Both these regions were building airplanes before Shield AI existed, and we went to them for that reason,” said Armor Harris, senior vice president of aircraft at Shield AI. “Wichita’s track record speaks for itself, with more than a hundred years of aircraft manufacturing and more than a third of all American general aviation airplanes built there. Flight test is where an airplane earns its way, and Kansas has the airspace, the hangars and the people who have spent their careers around airplanes. Puget Sound has been producing aircraft at rate for seventy years and has the engineers, technicians and suppliers that takes. X-BAT will be built in Washington and fly in Kansas before it goes to a customer, and Kansas will keep this fleet in the air for decades.”

X-BAT is planned to begin production in 2029 and reaches full rate in the early 2030s. An economic analysis of the program estimates what each region gains if it runs as planned, and the employment projections reflect the program at rate. In the Newton area, X-BAT supports about 1,800 jobs in the early 2030s and about 2,900 by 2046, adding roughly $5 billion to the regional economy over that period. In the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue region, it supports about 8,000 jobs in the early 2030s and about 27,000 by 2046, adding roughly $73 billion. The counts include people employed by Shield AI, people at suppliers, and the jobs that local spending by both groups sustains.

Frisco, Texas remains Shield AI’s prototyping site and the home of V-BAT, and the company continues to build, operate and hire there. The analysis puts Frisco alone at about 600 jobs in the early 2030s and about 700 by 2046. Texas suppliers carry much of the rest of the program, including propulsion and mission systems work. Across the state, X-BAT is projected to support about 1,400 jobs in the early 2030s and about 7,900 by 2046, adding roughly $18.6 billion to the Texas economy.

Source : Shield AI