Germany’s About to Learn Why Australia Took a Bet on the Ghost Bat
A collaborative combat aircraft, or CCA, is an uncrewed aircraft specifically designed to work alongside manned fighters.
A quick note to my paying subscribers, of which this article is one of two weekly exclusives just for you: There is so much going on in the world that a defense writer is spoilt for choice when it comes to topic ideation. I can tell you that I’ve been wanting to write an article for a while on autonomous aircraft, which is the subject of today’s piece.
But I’m also aware that the US is involved in a ridiculous war of choice in Iran, which provides its own evergreen garden of topics… more like a garden of poison ivy, amirite?
Still, if there is a subject you would rather I cover, feel free to let me know in the comments. I frequently ask myself, “Should I be covering the Iran War more?”
While visiting family today on Easter, my own father-in-law asked me why the US Air Force is having so much trouble suppressing Iranian air defense. I told him my thoughts, but it occurs to me that explaining that in written form would make for a good article.
My point is that, as paid subscribers, you have a voice in the things I research and analyze. I think it is interesting that out of the three primary places I self-publish, the algorithms of Medium and YouTube punish me for deviating too far from Ukraine War topics. But Substack seems to be more forgiving, allowing me to write about military technology and geopolitics more generally, which is refreshing.
Anyways, let’s talk about these so-called collaborative combat aircraft.
Stay frosty -w
There’s a moment in every arms acquisition program where the thing stops being a demonstrator and starts being a real aircraft that real countries actually want.
For the Boeing MQ-28 Ghost Bat, which I’ve been following for a while, that moment arrived last year when it fired a live AIM-120 AMRAAM over a range in Woomera, South Australia.
And now, Rheinmetall, Germany’s largest defense contractor, is locking arms with Boeing Australia to pitch the Ghost Bat directly to the Bundeswehr.
What a fun word. I could just walk around all day saying “BOON-dess-vair” to complete strangers in Michigan and be happy.
Anyways, this is a pretty big signal that we’ve officially moved from “interesting Aussie project” to “drone that could reshape European airpower.”
Sounds hyperbolic, I know. But if these aircraft do what they describe, airpower doctrine that we’ve practiced for decades will need to be rewritten more or less from scratch.
What the Ghost Bat Actually Is
Before we get into the German-Aussie geopolitics, let’s make sure we’re on the same page about what we’re talking about, because the name “collaborative combat aircraft” is not super obvious.
Also, it doesn’t help that a half-a-dozen US companies are all working on their own versions of autonomous “wingman” fighter aircraft.
A collaborative combat aircraft, or CCA, is an uncrewed aircraft specifically designed to work alongside manned fighters.
Not necessarily to replace them, although one might imagine that this would be its final evolution. For now these CCA’s are advertised as smart, cheap, mission-flexible wingman that can absorb risk so the human pilot doesn’t have to.
Here’s a quick roundup of the “who’s who.”
First up, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems: YFQ-42A, now named Dark Merlin, for the US Air Force CCA program.
Anduril Industries: YFQ-44A. The USAF identifies Anduril’s CCA as the YFQ-44A, and Breaking Defense has also referred to it as the YFQ-44A Fury.
Lockheed Martin Skunk Works: Vectis. Lockheed publicly introduced Vectis in 2025 as its collaborative combat aircraft offering.
Northrop Grumman: Project Talon, now designated YFQ-48A. Northrop’s site says the Air Force designated its Talon prototype as YFQ-48A.
Kratos Defense: XQ-58 Valkyrie, in partnership with Northrop Grumman for the Marine Corps’ MUX TACAIR Collaborative Combat Aircraft effort.
For the US Navy’s carrier-based CCA effort, Anduril, Boeing, General Atomics, and Northrop Grumman are all competing, with Lockheed Martin expected to lead command-and-control rather than a named aircraft platform. I haven’t found public aircraft names for those Navy concepts yet.
For the US Marine Corps MUX TACAIR CCA effort, General Atomics is using the YFQ-42A as its surrogate platform, and Northrop/Kratos are using the XQ-58 Valkyrie.
And then there’s what we’re discussing today, the Boeing Australia’s MQ-28 Ghost Bat.
Now, if you’re like me, you’re probably wondering why all of these aircraft from different manufacturers look nearly identical… Are they just copying off of one another, or what?
Sort of. They are all responding to a Pentagon requirements list.
Think of it like this. If five different teams are told to build a Formula 1 car, you don’t get five wildly different shapes. You get five versions of the same car, tuned around the edges.
CCAs are all driving down that same road: Stealth, range, endurance, and flight stability are the requirements.
Think of these aircraft like giving your best quarterback a team of receivers who never get tired, never demand contract renegotiations, and can be sent into a wall-to-wall defensive line without losing any humans.
There’s actually a good parallel here with the US F-15 Eagle recently shot down over Iran that triggered a search and rescue effort (this will almost certainly be a Hollywood production in the next five years because the studios are creatively bankrupt).
The old way looked like this: an F-15E pushes into contested airspace with its own crew, sensors, and weapons, trying to balance target access against threat exposure. If the target set or mission flow forces the jet too deep, the pilots carry the risk personally… as we saw in Iran.
The CCA-enabled version looks different. The Strike Eagle stays farther back, acting as the quarterback instead of the point man.
Two CCAs move ahead of the formation. One works as a forward sensor and decoy, daring Iran’s surviving air defenses to blink. The second carries jamming or weapons, ready to hit a pop-up radar or suspected launcher.
The enemy now has a decision to make: Shoot at the forward drone and expose your position or hold fire and let the strike package press closer with a cleaner picture.
Either way, the F-15 crew is no longer the first body through the door.
That’s the basic promise of CCA.
Not that it necessarily makes combat safe. Just that it puts the first and biggest risk on silicon and fuel instead of on a pilot and a wizzo (WSO).
The MQ-28 is Australia’s answer to that requirement, built by Boeing Defense Australia with over 200 local suppliers and assembled at a plant in Toowoomba, Queensland. Oh man, another fun word…
Like Canada, it’s the first homegrown Australian combat aircraft in more than fifty years. That’s an industrial accomplishment worth pausing on, because Australia essentially rebuilt a combat aviation manufacturing base from scratch for this program.
The entire nose section is swappable on the Ghost Bat.
You want radar? Swap that sucker in.
Infrared search and track? Throw it on like pickles on a burger.
Electronic warfare suite? SIGINT package? It all plugs in like an aviation-grade Lego set, and probably just as expensive as real Legos. (If you have kids or grandkids, you know what I’m talking about).
