Before the end of 2026, Airbus will look to demonstrate the ability of uncrewed combat aircraft to serve as “loyal wingmen” for crewed fighter jets.
The manufacturer on Friday said it plans to conduct the first flight of its uncrewed collaborative combat aircraft (UCCA) system—which combines Kratos’ experimental XQ-58A Valkyrie and its own mission software—alongside a Eurofighter Typhoon this year. It aims to deliver the UCCA system to the German Air Force by 2029.
Like the collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) platforms being pursued by different branches of the U.S. military, Airbus’ UCCA is designed to handle missions that place human pilots in risky situations. The uncrewed aircraft will be commanded by crewed fighters like the Typhoon, which was jointly developed by Airbus, Leonardo, and BAE Systems to serve as part of Europe’s Future Combat Air System (FCAS).
Marco Gumbrecht, a retired German Air Force lieutenant colonel and Eurofighter pilot who now heads Airbus’ key account Germany, said the manufacturer is “confident” it can deliver the capability “at a very affordable price.”
“We are offering the German customer exactly what Germany and Europe urgently need in the current geopolitical situation: a proven flying uncrewed combat aircraft with a sovereign European mission system that does not have to be developed from scratch in a time-consuming and costly manner,” Gumbrecht said in a statement.
Airbus’ Uncrewed Effort
Airbus said it is equipping its Multiplatform Autonomous Reconfigurable and Secure (MARS) system on two Valkyries, the first it received under a partnership with U.S. manufacturer Kratos agreed to in July.
MARS is designed to support FCAS—the European equivalent of the U.S. military’s Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program—and deliver full collaborative combat capability by 2040.
The open architecture software is designed to easily integrate just about any sensor or other hardware needed to orchestrate crewed-uncrewed aircraft teaming. Per Airbus’ website, it enables “real-time situational awareness, automated decision making and coordinated operations across domains.”
The “brain” of MARS—which handles the actual mission orchestration, replacing a human pilot—is an AI-powered software called Mindshare. Airbus demonstrated Mindshare in 2024, using two uncrewed Primoco aircraft to conduct threat detection and data exchange with only human supervision.
Kratos’ Valkyrie is a runway independent, rail-launched stealth drone with a maximum takeoff weight of three tons, capable of flying 3,000 miles at up to 45,000 feet. About 30 feet long with a 27-foot wingspan, it can carry kinetic effects such as missiles as well as nonkinetic payloads such as signal jammers and other cyber tools.
The Valkyrie is designed to be flown autonomously on its own or as a loyal wingman to crewed fighters. Kratos built the aircraft for the U.S. Air Force’s Low Cost Attritable Strike Demonstrator (LCASD) program and first flew it in 2019. Several military branches continue to test it regularly.
To prepare the Eurofighter for the uncrewed Valkyries, Airbus said it will make minor upgrades to the aircraft’s avionics and work with Rafael to add connectivity to the latter’s Litening 5 system. The pod uses an advanced sensor suite to detect and intercept enemy targets. Per Rafael, there are more than 2,800 Litening 5 systems in operation on 26 different aircraft types across 28 air forces, collectively logging more than 2.2 million flight hours.
The German Air Force is not the only one exploring the Valkyrie as a loyal wingman. In January, it was the first platform selected for the U.S. Marine Corps’ CCA program, with Northrop Grumman assuming Airbus’ role as mission system provider under the $231.5 million contract.
Similar efforts are underway within the Air Force and Navy. The Air Force aims to procure about 1,000 autonomous systems to pair with 500 next-generation fighters—like Lockheed Martin’s F-35A and Boeing’s F-47—acquired under NGAD.
So far, the branch has selected General Atomics’ YFQ-42A Dark Merlin and Anduril’s YFQ-44A Fury—which both flew for the first time in 2025—for further testing and evaluation. Dark Merlin in February made its first semiautonomous flight alongside crewed fighters.
Other CCA candidates include Boeing’s MQ-28 Ghost Bat, Lockheed’s Vectis, and Northrop’s YFQ-48A Talon Blue. The Air Force hopes to deploy CCA capabilities by 2030.