Loyal Wingman Drones Are Becoming a New Layer of Airpower
Loyal wingman drones are uncrewed combat aircraft designed to operate alongside crewed fighters, extending their sensors, weapons, electronic warfare capabilities and reach while reducing the risk to pilots. The concept has moved rapidly from experimental demonstrations toward operationally relevant testing, with the U.S. Collaborative Combat Aircraft program, Australia’s MQ-28 Ghost Bat and European and Chinese efforts all pursuing different versions of the same broad idea.
- Loyal Wingman Drones Are Becoming a New Layer of Airpower
- Key Takeaways
- What Is a Loyal Wingman Drone?
- Why Militaries Want Loyal Wingman Drones
- MQ-28 Ghost Bat: Australia’s Loyal Wingman
- XQ-58A Valkyrie: The US Experimental Path
- From XQ-58 to the US Collaborative Combat Aircraft
- YFQ-44A Live-Fire Test Marks a Major Milestone
- How CCA Autonomy Works
- Open Architecture Could Decide the Winners
- Europe Builds Its Own Loyal Wingman Ecosystem
- China’s Loyal Wingman Development
- Loyal Wingman Comparison
- Loyal Wingman vs Traditional Combat Drones
- What Missions Could Loyal Wingmen Perform?
- The Real Advantage: Combat Mass
- Survivability Is More Than Stealth
- The Communications Problem
- Cost, Maintenance and Attrition
- Why the US CCA Program Matters for the Indo-Pacific
- CCA and the F-35
- CCA and Future Sixth-Generation Fighters
- Major Challenges Ahead
- 1. Autonomous Decision-Making
- 2. Electronic Warfare
- 3. Engine and Maintenance Costs
- 4. Weapons Integration
- 5. Production Capacity
- 6. Training and Doctrine
- 7. Cybersecurity
- The Future of Loyal Wingman Drones
- Analytical Conclusion
The most important change is that these aircraft are no longer being designed simply as remotely piloted drones. Instead, they are being developed as semi-autonomous or autonomous members of a larger combat formation.
That distinction matters.
A future fighter formation may include a crewed F-35, F-47 or Eurofighter at the center of the mission, supported by several uncrewed aircraft performing sensing, jamming, communications relay, decoy, air-to-air or strike missions.
The U.S. Air Force’s CCA program is now one of the most advanced examples. The service designated the General Atomics YFQ-42A and Anduril YFQ-44A in 2025 and moved into increasingly demanding flight, autonomy and weapons testing during 2026. In July 2026, a YFQ-44A conducted a live-fire test involving an AIM-120 weapon against a digital target, marking an important step in weapons integration.
At the same time, Australia’s MQ-28 Ghost Bat has accumulated operationally relevant experience and demonstrated autonomous teaming with crewed aircraft.
The result is a rapidly expanding competition over what could become one of the defining technologies of sixth-generation air warfare.
Key Takeaways
Loyal wingman drones are evolving from experimental unmanned aircraft into networked combat systems intended to operate with crewed fighters in highly contested airspace.
What Is a Loyal Wingman Drone?
A loyal wingman is an uncrewed aircraft designed to cooperate with a crewed aircraft rather than operate as an isolated drone.
The term originally described the idea of an unmanned aircraft accompanying a fighter and following instructions from the human pilot. Modern Collaborative Combat Aircraft, however, go further.
A CCA is intended to receive high-level mission direction while autonomously handling many flight and tactical functions.
That could include:
- Navigation and formation management
- Sensor collection and fusion
- Threat detection
- Electronic warfare
- Target identification
- Communications relay
- Decoy operations
- Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance
- Air-to-air weapons employment
- Air-to-ground strike
- Battle damage assessment
The human pilot remains responsible for mission command and critical decisions, while the uncrewed aircraft handles tasks that would otherwise increase the workload of the crewed aircraft.
The U.S. Congressional Research Service has described CCA as semi-autonomous uncrewed aircraft intended to operate alongside crewed fighters, with potential missions including air combat, strike, electronic warfare, targeting and ISR. Earlier Air Force planning used an assumption of roughly 1,000 aircraft, based on two CCAs supporting each of 500 advanced fighters.
Why Militaries Want Loyal Wingman Drones
The underlying problem is straightforward.
Modern fighter aircraft have become extraordinarily capable, but also extraordinarily expensive and complex.
A fifth-generation fighter such as the F-35 can carry sophisticated sensors, electronic warfare equipment, communications systems and precision weapons. But there are limits to how many aircraft a nation can buy, how many pilots it can train and how much risk commanders can accept when placing crewed platforms against advanced air defenses.
Loyal wingman drones offer another option.
Instead of asking one fighter to perform every mission, commanders can distribute functions among several aircraft.
For example, a formation could theoretically include:
Crewed fighter: command, sensor fusion and mission control.
CCA 1: electronic attack.
CCA 2: forward sensing and targeting.
CCA 3: air-to-air weapons.
CCA 4: decoy or communications relay.
The exact allocation would depend on the aircraft and mission, but the broader principle is to create a distributed combat formation.
This makes the formation harder to defeat because an adversary cannot necessarily eliminate the mission by destroying one aircraft.
MQ-28 Ghost Bat: Australia’s Loyal Wingman
The MQ-28 Ghost Bat is one of the most mature loyal wingman programs in the world.
Developed by Boeing Australia for the Royal Australian Air Force, the aircraft began flight testing in 2021 and became the first military aircraft designed and manufactured in Australia in more than five decades.
Boeing describes the MQ-28 as an uncrewed collaborative combat aircraft designed to work with both crewed and uncrewed platforms. The company lists a range of more than 2,000 nautical miles, speeds up to Mach 0.9, a ceiling above 40,000 feet and a maximum takeoff weight of up to 12,000 pounds.
Those figures are important because they place the Ghost Bat in a different category from conventional small tactical drones.
It is intended to operate at fighter-like speeds and ranges rather than simply provide low-cost battlefield surveillance.
MQ-28 and Human-Machine Teaming
The Ghost Bat has also demonstrated increasingly sophisticated teaming.
In 2025, Boeing and the RAAF demonstrated a mission involving MQ-28 aircraft controlled through an E-7A Wedgetail, while the program has also progressed to autonomous weapons engagement testing. Boeing reported an air-to-air autonomous weapon engagement in December 2025 involving an MQ-28 teamed with an E-7A and F/A-18F Super Hornet.
The aircraft also completed international operational flight testing at Point Mugu, California, in 2026, giving the program experience operating from an allied location outside Australia.
That experience gives the MQ-28 an important advantage: it is not simply an airshow concept.
It has accumulated a growing body of flight, autonomy and integration experience.
XQ-58A Valkyrie: The US Experimental Path
The XQ-58A Valkyrie, developed by Kratos with the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, represents another major step in the development of attritable combat aircraft.
The Valkyrie was developed through AFRL’s Low Cost Attritable Aircraft Technology effort.
Unlike conventional fighter aircraft, the XQ-58A was designed around affordability and rapid production.
The U.S. National Museum of the U.S. Air Force lists a maximum speed of approximately 652 mph, a range of 3,500 miles, a ceiling approaching 45,000 feet and a maximum weight of 6,000 pounds.
The aircraft also demonstrated an important concept in 2021 when it released an ALTIUS-600 small unmanned aircraft from its internal weapons bay.
This demonstrated that an uncrewed aircraft could itself become a carrier for additional autonomous systems.
That concept is significant because future combat aircraft may not simply carry missiles and bombs. They may deploy smaller drones, decoys or sensors as part of a distributed attack package.
From XQ-58 to the US Collaborative Combat Aircraft
The XQ-58 helped demonstrate the technical feasibility of affordable, high-performance uncrewed aircraft.
The Air Force’s CCA program is taking the concept toward a more formal operational capability.
In March 2025, the Air Force officially designated the two Increment 1 prototypes as:
- YFQ-42A, developed by General Atomics
- YFQ-44A, developed by Anduril
The Y designation identifies a prototype, while F indicates fighter and Q identifies an unmanned aircraft. The Air Force said both aircraft are intended to support crewed-uncrewed teaming in contested environments.
The program has moved quickly.
The YFQ-42A began flight testing in 2025, while the Air Force continued weapons and autonomy testing across both platforms.
In February 2026, the service reported that it was implementing a government-owned Autonomy Government Reference Architecture across multiple CCA vendor platforms. The objective is to reduce dependence on a single proprietary software ecosystem and allow the government to insert new autonomy capabilities more rapidly.
That software architecture may ultimately prove as important as the aircraft itself.
YFQ-44A Live-Fire Test Marks a Major Milestone
The U.S. program crossed another important threshold in July 2026.
The Department of the Air Force conducted a live-fire test involving the YFQ-44A and an AIM-120 weapon over the Mojave Desert.
The test used a digital target and was designed to validate the aircraft’s ability to conduct a safe weapons engagement while retaining human oversight of weapon release.
This distinction is important.
The objective is not simply to create an autonomous aircraft capable of making independent lethal decisions.
The operational model being pursued involves human command authority combined with machine-level autonomy for navigation, sensing, coordination and other tactical functions.
That approach could allow a single pilot to manage several autonomous aircraft without manually flying each one.
How CCA Autonomy Works
A CCA does not need to be intelligent in the same way as a human pilot.
Instead, autonomy can be divided into different layers.
Flight Autonomy
The aircraft must maintain safe flight, avoid collisions and manage fuel and navigation.
Formation Autonomy
Multiple aircraft need to maintain formation geometry without requiring continuous pilot commands.
Mission Autonomy
The system needs to understand assigned objectives and adapt its route or behavior as conditions change.
Tactical Autonomy
The aircraft may detect threats, classify contacts and recommend or execute predefined responses within authorized rules.
Human Command
The human operator remains responsible for mission-level control and applicable weapons decisions.
This division of responsibility is central to the future CCA concept.
The pilot does not need to tell a loyal wingman every time to turn left, climb or adjust its formation position.
Instead, the pilot could issue a higher-level instruction, allowing the autonomous system to determine how best to execute it.
Open Architecture Could Decide the Winners
One of the most important aspects of the U.S. CCA program is not visible in photographs.
It is the software architecture.
Air forces traditionally purchase aircraft as tightly integrated systems. Upgrading them can require major hardware and software modifications.
CCA programs are attempting to break that model.
The Air Force’s government-owned autonomy architecture is intended to support modular software and allow capabilities from different suppliers to operate across multiple aircraft.
That approach could allow the service to improve autonomy much faster than it can redesign an aircraft.
It also creates an important industrial advantage.
If the airframe, sensors and autonomy system use open interfaces, new suppliers may be able to compete for individual components rather than requiring a single company to control the entire platform.
Europe Builds Its Own Loyal Wingman Ecosystem
The loyal wingman concept is not limited to the United States and Australia.
Europe is pursuing similar technologies through next-generation combat-air programs.
Airbus describes collaborative combat aircraft as autonomous armed platforms that can operate alongside crewed fighters such as the Eurofighter. The company highlights missions including sensing, electronic warfare, targeting and strike.
The broader European approach is connected to programs such as Future Combat Air System and associated remote carrier concepts.
The basic philosophy is similar to the U.S. model.
A crewed fighter acts as a command node while uncrewed systems extend its reach and provide additional capabilities.
The United Kingdom is also developing its own CCA technology.
In July 2026, BAE Systems unveiled Brontanax, described by the company as Britain’s first British-designed uncrewed autonomous CCA. BAE said the aircraft is intended to provide additional frontline capability and combat mass alongside crewed aircraft.
These programs show that Europe is not necessarily attempting to reproduce the U.S. CCA model exactly.
Instead, European countries are integrating uncrewed aircraft into their own sixth-generation combat-air architectures.
China’s Loyal Wingman Development
China is also pursuing multiple uncrewed combat aircraft concepts.
The FH-97A is one of the most frequently discussed Chinese loyal wingman designs. It has been associated with manned-unmanned teaming and has been presented as a platform capable of supporting missions such as electronic warfare, reconnaissance and strike.
Independent research has also identified the GJ-11 stealth UCAV as an important component of China’s broader uncrewed combat aircraft development. The International Institute for Strategic Studies and other defense analysts have tracked China’s increasing use of stealth UCAV and CCA-type concepts.
However, publicly available information about Chinese systems is much less complete than information available for U.S. and Australian programs.
This creates an important analytical limitation.
Aircraft displayed at Chinese air shows or military parades do not necessarily represent operational capability.
The distinction between a prototype, technology demonstrator, production aircraft and operational combat system must therefore be maintained.
Loyal Wingman Comparison
System Country Developer Role Approx. Range Approx. Speed Status MQ-28 Ghost Bat Australia Boeing Australia Collaborative combat aircraft 2,000+ nm Up to Mach 0.9 Advanced testing and operational development XQ-58A Valkyrie United States Kratos / AFRL Attritable combat aircraft / CCA technology demonstrator 3,500 miles 652 mph Mature demonstrator and technology platform YFQ-42A United States General Atomics CCA Not publicly disclosed Not publicly disclosed Flight testing YFQ-44A United States Anduril CCA Not publicly disclosed Not publicly disclosed Flight and weapons testing European Remote Carrier / CCA concepts Europe Airbus and industry partners Distributed combat, sensing and EW Program dependent Program dependent Development Brontanax United Kingdom BAE Systems Autonomous CCA Not publicly disclosed Not publicly disclosed Development FH-97A China Chinese aerospace industry Loyal wingman / UCAV concept Not reliably disclosed Not reliably disclosed Development / prototype GJ-11 China Chinese aerospace industry Stealth UCAV Not reliably disclosed Not reliably disclosed Development and testing Publicly available figures are not directly comparable because the aircraft have different design objectives and mission configurations. Chinese specifications in particular should be treated cautiously.
Loyal Wingman vs Traditional Combat Drones
A loyal wingman is different from a conventional remotely piloted drone.
A system such as the MQ-9 Reaper is primarily operated through a human control architecture, although it includes automated flight functions.
A CCA is intended to operate much more independently.
The distinction can be summarized this way:
Conventional Combat Drone Loyal Wingman / CCA Usually remotely operated Designed for high levels of autonomy Human operator manages flight Human provides mission-level direction Often optimized for ISR or strike Designed for fighter support and contested airspace Typically operates as an independent asset Designed to work as part of a formation Ground control is central Airborne crewed aircraft can act as mission commanders Longer endurance often prioritized Speed, survivability and integration are emphasized This does not mean conventional drones are becoming obsolete.
Instead, military aviation is moving toward a broader ecosystem containing multiple types of autonomous aircraft.
What Missions Could Loyal Wingmen Perform?
The flexibility of CCA designs is one of their most important advantages.
Electronic Warfare
An uncrewed aircraft could move closer to hostile radar systems and conduct electronic attack while reducing the risk to a crewed fighter.
Forward Sensing
A CCA could operate ahead of the crewed formation and provide additional sensor coverage.
Air Combat
Some aircraft could carry air-to-air missiles and expand the number of weapons available to a formation.
Decoy Operations
A relatively inexpensive aircraft could force an adversary to reveal radar emissions or expend expensive interceptors.
Strike
CCA platforms could carry precision weapons or provide targeting information to other aircraft.
Communications Relay
A loyal wingman could extend communications between aircraft operating at different locations.
Swarm Support
Larger CCAs could potentially carry or coordinate smaller autonomous aircraft, creating multiple layers of distributed capability.
The Real Advantage: Combat Mass
The strongest argument for loyal wingman drones is not that they can replace fighters.
It is that they can make fighters more effective.
A formation containing one crewed aircraft and several CCAs can potentially generate more sensors, weapons and tactical options than a formation consisting only of crewed aircraft.
The economics are also important.
Boeing describes the MQ-28 as being designed around an affordability objective and says the platform is intended to cost roughly one-tenth of a crewed platform.
The exact acquisition cost of operational variants will depend on production quantities, sensors, engines, weapons, support equipment and software.
Nevertheless, the basic concept is clear.
A military can accept greater risk when the aircraft are cheaper and faster to replace.
That creates the possibility of affordable combat mass.
Survivability Is More Than Stealth
It would be a mistake to judge CCAs only by radar cross-section.
Survivability can come from several factors:
- Low observability
- Electronic warfare
- High speed
- Stand-off weapons
- Distributed formations
- Decoys
- Sensor networking
- Autonomous maneuver
- Communications resilience
- Large numbers
An aircraft does not necessarily have to be invisible if the adversary cannot determine which aircraft is the primary threat.
That is one reason distributed formations are attractive for operations against sophisticated integrated air defense systems.
The Communications Problem
The biggest weakness of a networked combat formation may also be its greatest strength.
If CCAs depend heavily on data links, an adversary will attempt to disrupt those links.
Electronic warfare could interfere with:
- Satellite communications
- Tactical data links
- GPS
- Navigation systems
- Aircraft-to-aircraft communications
- Sensor data
- Ground control networks
A serious CCA architecture therefore needs to continue operating when communications are degraded or denied.
This requires greater onboard autonomy.
An aircraft that cannot receive continuous instructions from its human controller cannot simply stop functioning.
It needs predefined mission logic, navigation resilience and the ability to make bounded tactical decisions without constant external input.
Cost, Maintenance and Attrition
The phrase attritable aircraft is important.
Attritable does not mean disposable.
A military still needs to recover value from each aircraft.
Engines, sensors, electronic warfare equipment, communications systems and software can be expensive even if the airframe is relatively inexpensive.
A fleet of hundreds or thousands of CCAs would also require:
- Engines and spare parts
- Maintenance personnel
- Distributed operating locations
- Secure software infrastructure
- Weapons stocks
- Ground support equipment
- Training systems
- Data management
- Cybersecurity
- Autonomy testing
The economic advantage therefore depends on the entire lifecycle cost, not simply the price of the aircraft.
Why the US CCA Program Matters for the Indo-Pacific
CCA is particularly relevant to the Indo-Pacific because geography places a premium on range, survivability and distributed operations.
Large distances between bases and contested airspace can make traditional assumptions about centralized air operations less practical.
Uncrewed aircraft could provide additional combat power without requiring an equivalent increase in pilot numbers.
They could also operate from dispersed locations, depending on their logistics and runway requirements.
The Air Force has explicitly connected CCA to future air superiority and the broader Next Generation Air Dominance family of systems.
That makes CCA more than a drone procurement program.
It is becoming part of the architecture for future U.S. airpower.
CCA and the F-35
The F-35 could be an important node in future loyal wingman operations.
Its sensors, communications architecture and low-observable design make it well suited to operating inside a distributed combat network.
A future formation could potentially use an F-35 as the human-controlled sensor and command platform while CCAs extend the formation’s weapons and sensing reach.
The exact operational architecture remains under development.
But the concept is straightforward.
The F-35 does not need to carry every sensor and weapon itself if it can coordinate with several autonomous aircraft.
CCA and Future Sixth-Generation Fighters
The long-term vision goes beyond today’s F-35.
The U.S. Air Force is developing CCA alongside the broader NGAD family of systems.
Europe is developing FCAS and GCAP-related technologies.
In these architectures, the crewed fighter becomes one part of a much larger network.
That network may include:
- Crewed fighters
- CCAs
- Tankers
- AEW&C aircraft
- Satellites
- Ground sensors
- Maritime platforms
- Electronic warfare systems
- Long-range missiles
- Smaller autonomous drones
This is why CCA should be viewed as a system-of-systems capability, rather than simply another aircraft.
Major Challenges Ahead
Despite rapid progress, loyal wingman drones remain an emerging capability.
1. Autonomous Decision-Making
The more responsibility given to software, the greater the requirement for testing, verification and reliable human control.
2. Electronic Warfare
CCA networks must function in environments where GPS and communications may be actively attacked.
3. Engine and Maintenance Costs
A supposedly inexpensive aircraft can become expensive if its engine, sensors and support system are difficult to maintain.
4. Weapons Integration
Carrying a missile is relatively straightforward compared with safely integrating targeting, fire control, communications and rules governing weapons release.
5. Production Capacity
The strategic value of affordable mass disappears if industry cannot produce aircraft quickly enough during a major conflict.
6. Training and Doctrine
Pilots and commanders must learn how to manage several autonomous aircraft without becoming overloaded by information.
7. Cybersecurity
A compromised autonomy system could create risks far more serious than the loss of a conventional remotely piloted aircraft.
The Future of Loyal Wingman Drones
The next stage of development will probably focus less on proving that an aircraft can fly autonomously and more on proving that it can operate reliably inside a contested combat network.
That means testing increasingly difficult combinations of:
Autonomy + sensors + electronic warfare + weapons + communications + human command.
The U.S. Air Force’s rapid progress from prototype development to flight and weapons testing demonstrates how quickly the CCA concept is advancing.
Australia’s MQ-28 provides another model, emphasizing operational experimentation and allied interoperability.
Europe is embedding similar capabilities into sixth-generation combat-air programs, while China is developing multiple UCAV and loyal wingman concepts.
The competition is therefore no longer about whether autonomous combat aircraft will exist.
It is increasingly about who can integrate them at scale, connect them securely and produce them quickly enough to matter in a major conflict.
Analytical Conclusion
Loyal wingman drones represent one of the most significant changes in fighter aviation since the introduction of stealth and networked warfare.
The MQ-28 Ghost Bat demonstrates how an uncrewed aircraft can progress from technology demonstrator toward operationally relevant teaming. The XQ-58A Valkyrie demonstrated the potential of affordable, high-performance attritable aircraft. The U.S. YFQ-42A and YFQ-44A now push the concept toward an operational Collaborative Combat Aircraft fleet.
The central objective is not to eliminate the fighter pilot.
It is to give the pilot more options.
A single crewed fighter supported by several autonomous aircraft could potentially see farther, carry more weapons, conduct electronic attack from multiple directions and force an adversary to divide its defensive resources.
That changes the economics of air combat.
The future air force may therefore not be measured simply by how many fighters it owns.
It may be measured by how effectively it can combine crewed aircraft, autonomous combat aircraft, sensors, weapons and software into one distributed combat system.
For the United States and its allies, the race to develop that architecture is already underway.
The decisive advantage will likely belong to the force that can combine autonomy with reliable human command, resilient communications, affordable production and large-scale operational deployment.
In that sense, the loyal wingman is not replacing the fighter.
It is becoming the fighter’s next layer.
