Drone makers battle for air dominance with 'wingman' aircraft

By Joe Brock

PARIS (Reuters) -Defence heavyweights and emerging military tech firms used the Paris Airshow to showcase cutting-edge drones known as "wingmen" - uncrewed aircraft designed to fly alongside next-generation fighter jets and reshape the future of air combat.

The Paris show, the biggest aerospace and defence gathering in the world, featured a record number of drones, reflecting their rising importance after proving highly effective in the Ukraine war and as the U.S. prepares for a potential conflict with China in the Pacific.

In April last year, the U.S. Air Force selected Anduril and General Atomics to develop the first fleet of drone wingmen, which are designed to fly alongside manned fighter jets and are officially known as Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA).

California-based Anduril, which has already supplied small drones to Ukraine and was making its debut at the air show, displayed a model of its 17-foot Fury drone - planned for production in 2027 as part of the U.S. Air Force's CCA programme.

"We're moving extremely fast," Jason Levin, Anduril's senior vice president of engineering, told Reuters.

"The aircraft is very capable. We can't go into specifics here, but it performs the mission like a fighter."

Levin said Anduril had raised $2.5 billion to build a 5-million-square-foot production facility in Ohio, with construction set to begin next year.

In March, Anduril signed a 30-million-pound ($38 million) deal with Britain to supply its compact Altius drone to Ukraine. The drone can be launched from the ground or air and is capable of conducting strikes, serving as a decoy or for cyber warfare.

Larger drones like Fury are part of the U.S. CCA programme, which aims to field around 1,000 autonomous drones capable of conducting surveillance, electronic warfare and strike operations alongside piloted fighter jets - such as Lockheed Martin's F-35 and the next-generation F-47, which Boeing was tapped to build following its selection by the Air Force in March.

General Atomics showed off a model of its YFQ-42A drone at the show, which is its equivalent of the Fury, with both designed for potential use in the Pacific if China invaded democratically-ruled Taiwan.

Last week, Boeing demonstrated the potential of drones operating in coordination with human pilots during a groundbreaking test with the Royal Australian Air Force, the U.S. aerospace giant announced at the air show.

In the trial, two of Boeing's Ghost Bat drones flew alongside an E-7A Wedgetail surveillance aircraft, with a human operator remotely controlling the uncrewed systems to carry out a mission against an airborne target, the company said.

"The Ghost Bat has the potential to turn a single fighter jet into a fighting team, with advanced sensors that are like hundreds of eyes in the sky," Australian Minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy said in a statement.

European defence firms are also advancing wingman drone initiatives, including Sweden’s Saab and a trilateral partnership between Dassault Aviation, Airbus, and Indra Sistemas under the Future Combat Air System. The programme aims to integrate autonomous drones with manned fighter jets.

Turkey's Baykar displayed two of its drone models at the show for the first time - the high-altitude, heavy lift Akinci and the TB3, which has foldable wings and can take off or land on short-runway aircraft carriers. On Monday, Baykar and Italian defence and aerospace group Leonardo formally launched a joint venture for unmanned systems.

Germany's Rheinmetall announced at the show that it would partner with Anduril to build versions of Fury and Barracuda - a cruise missile-style drone - for European markets.

(Reporting by Joe Brock. Additional reporting by Giulia Segreti. Editing by Mark Potter)