The MQ-28 Ghost Bat: Australia's Autonomous Wingman

When the first Boeing Airpower Teaming System lifted off from the Woomera Range Complex in South Australia on February 27, 2021, it marked two milestones simultaneously. It was the first flight of what would become the MQ-28 Ghost Bat, an autonomous drone designed to fight alongside manned aircraft. And it was the first military combat aircraft designed and manufactured in Australia in more than 50 years, since the GAF Nomad entered production in the 1970s. Australia had re-entered the combat aircraft business, and it did so with one of the most forward-looking programs in military aviation.

Why Australia Built a Combat Drone

The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) operates a small but capable fleet of F/A-18F Super Hornets, EA-18G Growlers, and, increasingly, F-35A Lightning IIs. These are excellent aircraft, but they are also expensive. Each F-35A costs over $80 million, and Australia has ordered 72 of them. The RAAF cannot afford to field enough manned fighters to match the growing air forces of potential adversaries in the Indo-Pacific region through sheer numbers.

The solution is force multiplication. If each manned fighter can control one or more autonomous wingmen, the effective size of the fighter force doubles or triples without proportionally increasing cost. The unmanned aircraft absorbs the risk of flying into the most heavily defended airspace, carries additional sensors and weapons, and extends the manned fighter's situational awareness, all while keeping the human pilot out of the threat envelope.

Boeing Australia began developing the Airpower Teaming System (ATS) in partnership with the RAAF in 2017. The program moved remarkably fast: from concept to first flight in roughly four years, with the aircraft designed, engineered, and manufactured entirely in Australia, primarily at Boeing's facility in Brisbane, Queensland.

Design: Modular and Stealthy

The MQ-28 Ghost Bat is a jet-powered drone approximately 11.7 meters (38 feet) long with a low-observable profile that blends swept wings into a smooth fuselage. The design minimizes radar cross-section through careful shaping, no sharp angles, no vertical surfaces, and no external weapons pylons that would create radar returns. While not as stealthy as a dedicated stealth aircraft like the F-35 or B-21, the Ghost Bat is designed to be difficult to detect at ranges where conventional drones would already be tracked and engaged.

The aircraft's most distinctive feature is its modular nose section. The entire forward fuselage can be removed and replaced with different mission-specific packages, allowing the same airframe to perform radically different roles without any structural modification. One nose section might carry an electro-optical/infrared sensor suite for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR). Another might house an electronic warfare payload for jamming enemy radars and communications. A third could potentially carry weapons for strike missions.

This modularity means a squadron could configure its Ghost Bats for a specific mission in a matter of hours, swapping nose sections on the flight line. A morning reconnaissance mission could be followed by an afternoon electronic warfare sortie using the same airframe with a different payload, a level of operational flexibility that no manned fighter can match.

The aircraft has a reported combat range of approximately 2,000 nautical miles (3,700 km), enough to cover the vast distances of the Indo-Pacific theater. It is powered by a single turbofan engine, though the specific powerplant has not been publicly identified.

AI and Autonomy

The Ghost Bat is designed to operate with varying levels of autonomy. At the most basic level, a pilot in a manned fighter, or an operator on the ground, directs the drone to specific waypoints, instructs it to scan an area, or designates a target. The drone handles the flying, navigation, and obstacle avoidance autonomously.

At higher levels of autonomy, the Ghost Bat can make tactical decisions independently, choosing a route through defended airspace, responding to pop-up threats, or adjusting its sensor employment based on what it detects. The human remains in the loop for critical decisions like weapons release, but the drone handles the moment-to-moment tactical flying without constant human input.

Boeing has developed an AI backbone that enables the Ghost Bat to team with manned aircraft in a coordinated formation. The manned fighter serves as the "quarterback", setting mission objectives and priorities, while the Ghost Bat executes those objectives autonomously. If the datalink is degraded or lost, the drone can continue operating on its last set of instructions or follow predetermined contingency plans.

This human-machine teaming model is the central concept of the program. The Ghost Bat is not meant to replace manned fighters, it is meant to extend them. A flight of two F-35s controlling four Ghost Bats would present a much larger and more complex problem to an adversary than two F-35s alone, with the unmanned aircraft absorbing risk and expanding the formation's sensor coverage and weapons capacity.

The Name: Australia's Ghost Bat

The RAAF designated the aircraft MQ-28A and named it Ghost Bat in March 2022. The name comes from the Australian ghost bat (Macroderma gigas), a native species found across northern Australia. It is Australia's only carnivorous bat, a predator that hunts using both echolocation and passive listening, detecting prey in complete darkness. The parallel to a stealthy sensor-equipped combat drone was deliberate.

The naming followed a tradition in the RAAF of giving Australian fauna names to military systems. It also reflected a growing emphasis on developing an indigenous Australian defense industry, the Ghost Bat is designed and built in Australia, by Australians, for Australian strategic requirements, even though Boeing is an American company.

How It Compares

The Ghost Bat enters a growing field of "loyal wingman" and collaborative combat aircraft programs. The United States is pursuing the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program, which includes the XQ-58 Valkyrie and newer designs from Anduril, General Atomics, and Boeing. Russia has the S-70 Okhotnik, though that is a much larger and more expensive platform designed for a different role.

Against the XQ-58 Valkyrie, its closest American counterpart, the Ghost Bat is larger, longer-ranged, and more focused on sensor and electronic warfare missions than on attritable strike. The Valkyrie is designed to be inexpensive enough that commanders accept losing them in combat. The Ghost Bat, while cheaper than a manned fighter, is not intended to be expendable. Its modular mission systems, sophisticated AI, and stealth features represent a significant per-unit investment.

The Ghost Bat's real advantage is maturity. While many CCA programs remain in concept or early prototype stages, the MQ-28 has been flying since 2021, with multiple prototypes completing an expanding test program. Australia and Boeing have a head start in understanding the real-world challenges of autonomous wingman operations, lessons that will prove invaluable as the concept matures.

Current Status and What Comes Next

Multiple Ghost Bat prototypes have been built and are conducting an expanding flight test program in Australia. The test campaign has progressively expanded the aircraft's flight envelope, tested its autonomous systems, and begun integrating it with manned fighter operations. The RAAF has committed to acquiring the type for operational service, though exact numbers and timelines have not been publicly announced.

Export interest has been significant. The United States, United Kingdom, and several Indo-Pacific nations have expressed interest in the program or similar concepts. Boeing has positioned the Ghost Bat as a platform that can be adapted to different customer requirements through its modular design, the same airframe could serve Australian, American, and allied air forces with customer-specific mission packages.

The MQ-28 Ghost Bat may represent the future of tactical airpower: not as a replacement for manned fighters, but as the force multiplier that makes a small air force fight like a much larger one. Australia cannot match the fighter fleet sizes of major powers in the Indo-Pacific. But if every Australian F-35 brings two or three autonomous wingmen to the fight, the math changes significantly. That is the bet Australia is making, and the Ghost Bat is the machine that will determine whether it pays off.