The U.S. Navy is touting the U.S.-Australian MQ-28 Ghost Bat ‘loyal wingman’ type drone program as a model for future industrial partnerships, while confirming continued U.S. military interest in the drone. The fact that the Navy is now speaking about this is notable, on the one hand because the MQ-28 has so far been seen primarily as a program of interest for the U.S. Air Force, and on the other because the Navy is currently still working to define its carrier-based Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) plans.
Asked by TWZ about what the Navy is seeking to get from the MQ-28 and its wider goal for the platform, Capt. Ron Flanders, public affairs officer at the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development & Acquisition (RDA), said:
“The partnership between the United States and Australia on the MQ-28 represents a new model of joint development, where allied nations co-design and co-produce high-end military capabilities. The U.S. has expressed strong interest in leveraging the MQ-28’s AI-driven autonomy and modular design for future air combat operations.”
The joint development of high-technology military hardware, as referenced in the first part of this response, is not restricted to the MQ-28, of course, and there are already other big-ticket programs involving U.S. and Australian collaboration.
The second part of the answer is somewhat more intriguing since it does suggest the Navy may well also be looking seriously at how it might leverage the MQ-28 — and related technologies.
It only emerged in 2019 that Australia was working together with Boeing on the MQ-28, originally referred to as the Airpower Teaming System (ATS). The first flight of one of these drones occurred in 2021. Meanwhile, three Ghost Bat prototypes are known to have been built and flight-tested in Australia.
As it now stands, Boeing is planning to build the MQ-28 in Queensland, Australia, and provide them to the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) as an important part of the service’s future plans.
As of 2022, the RAAF said it wanted to acquire at least 10 MQ-28s by the end of 2025, at which point it would begin flying them operationally. Last month, Boeing provided an update on the program, pointing to plans for a series of flight-test demonstrations later this year, which will include MQ-28s teaming with crewed assets, such as E-7 Wedgetail and F-35 stealth fighter, to complete operationally relevant missions. As of March of this year, the test team had recorded 100 test flights.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Air Force has also said it will make use of a Ghost Bat for testing purposes, with the design serving as what it describes as a “technology feeder” for the service’s CCA program.
In February of last year, the Australian Department of Defense disclosed that it had “signed a CCA development project arrangement with the United States on 30 March 2023.” While this was widely presumed to relate to the Air Force CCA program, it could also refer to the Navy effort.
However, while the U.S. Air Force has now chosen its two CCA designs — at least competing for Increment 1 of that effort — the U.S. Navy is taking a more circumspect approach, as we discussed in depth only recently.
At this point, it’s also worth noting that Increment 2 of the Air Force’s CCA effort could be the first to include foreign participation, something the service has confirmed in the past. This could well provide another opportunity for the MQ-28 with the Air Force.
Meanwhile, the Navy still plans to develop and field carrier-based CCAs that will work alongside the service’s fighter aircraft in a force-multiplying role, but, for the time being at least, the service is focusing more on its MQ-25 Stingray tanker drone and its supporting infrastructure, while allowing the other services, especially the U.S. Air Force, to prove out the CCA concept.
It’s this approach that makes the Navy’s statement on the MQ-28 all the more interesting, suggesting that the Ghost Bat could find a way into the service’s CCA thinking.
On the other hand, there is evidence that the Navy is currently interested in cheaper and more disposable CCAs than the Air Force, which is pursuing a much higher-end capability with unit costs in the tens of millions. That would appear to count against the MQ-28, which is a larger and more expensive design.
Boeing has already pitched the MQ-28 for carrier-based applications, with a rendering of a variant or derivative of the drone with a visible tail hook shown landing on a carrier in a briefing put together by the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom. Boeing subsequently confirmed that this was a company image, and as such could be intended for the U.S. Navy, too.
“We are studying future options to meet the forecast capability requirements both locally and internationally,” Boeing told TWZ in 2023, in response to questions about this particular development. “We cannot disclose specific variant details.”
Overall, the design of the MQ-28 emphasizes a high degree of modularity, including a rapidly swappable nose section. It also makes extensive use of open-architecture mission systems, as you can read more about here. Should the U.S. Navy — or another customer — decide to pursue the development of a carrier-based MQ-28, these factors would make that process easier.
Whether it’s the Navy or the Air Force, TWZ has previously laid out a detailed case for how the trilateral Australia-United Kingdom-United States (AUKUS) defense cooperation agreement, specifically, could provide an ideal framework for cooperation on the Air Force CCA program, and the same applies to the Navy’s version of the same program, or another adjacent effort.
There is also emerging evidence indicating that the U.S. Navy is already involved in the MQ-28 test program as it seeks to define its CCA requirements.
An official biography of Cmdr. James Moore Licata, callsign “Two Times,” states that, in February 2023, he reported to the “Ghost Wolves” of Air Test & Evaluation Squadron 24 (UX-24) at Webster Naval Outlying Field, Maryland, to assume the role of government flight test director for Advanced Development efforts.
Here, Licata “served as the military Test and Evaluation lead for U.S. Navy Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) and the U.S. Navy’s principal test representative in the CCA Development Project Arrangement between the United States and Australian governments.”
Licata left that assignment in February of this year, joining Air Test & Evaluation Squadron 31 (VX-31) at China Lake, California, as chief test pilot.
While the biography doesn’t mention MQ-28 by name, the description of a “CCA Development Project Arrangement” involving the U.S. and Australian governments suggests that Ghost Bat would have been at least a major focus of that effort.
The U.S. Navy and RAAF also operate the MQ-4C Triton high-altitude long-endurance drone, providing further options for cooperation in the uncrewed realm. On the other hand, the Australian government specifically refers to the MQ-28 as a CCA, something that would not apply to the Triton, for example.
It’s also worth noting that an MQ-28 has been in the United States for some time, for testing, and this and the MQ-25 demonstrator have been sighted together at MidAmerica Airport outside of St. Louis, Missouri. As you can read about here, the first photos of a Ghost Bat in the United States, which were published by Boeing in 2023, showed the two drones side-by-side at this location, also pointing to potential crossover with the Navy’s MQ-25. In particular, the MQ-25 program will feed into Navy CCA efforts in terms of developing the infrastructure required to operate fixed-wing drones on a regular basis from carrier decks.
TWZ has reached out to the Australian Defense Department’s representative in Washington, DC, to find out more about the Navy’s relationship with the MQ-28.
However, the U.S. Navy is clearly looking at the MQ-28, even if only on a test and evaluation basis. However, based on the versatility of the design and the fact that Boeing has already explored, at some level, what it would take to make it carrier-compatible, the drone could well be of deeper interest to the Navy as it sets about defining its CCA requirements.
Howard Altman, Senior Staff Writer for TWZ, contributed to this story.
Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com