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The Ghost Bat is being displayed with the Meteor missile here at Farnborough Airshow.
Credit: Mark Wagner/Aviation-Images
FARNBOROUGH, England—Boeing and MBDA on July 20 showcased the former’s MQ-28 Ghost Bat collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) with the latter’s Meteor air-to-air missile as the European company increases its pitch of integrating on autonomous aircraft.
The display here at Farnborough Airshow is also the MQ-28’s first appearance at the event, coming after it was also on show at the ILA Berlin expo in June.
Boeing Defense, Space and Security CEO Steve Parker, when asked about the display on July 19, avoided talking about the Meteor specifically, but said the Ghost Bat is designed to quickly integrate weapons. The MQ-28 in December 2025 fired an AIM-120 during a test in Australia, in which it worked with an E-7A Wedgetail and F/A-18 Super Hornet for targeting.
For that test, Boeing Australia integrated the AIM-120 on the aircraft over seven months.
“Now, seven months I would tell you is a lot faster than what is typically the course,” he says. “That goes to [the] open architectures on the Ghost Bat, how we design it a little bit differently.”
New variants of the Ghost Bat have an internal weapons bay sized to fit two AIM-120s—or similar-sized air-to-air weapons—or four small diameter bombs.
Similarly, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. at Farnborough is exhibiting its YFQ-42A Dark Merlin CCA next to MBDA Spear air-launched surface attack weapons as part of the company’s showcasing of integrating on CCAs.
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