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An MQ-28 Ghost Bat on display at the Avalon Airshow.
AVALON, Australia—Boeing plans to fire an air-to-air missile from its MQ-28 Ghost Bat uncrewed combat aircraft demonstrator late this year or early next, as part of an effort to accelerate the system’s development, says Steve Parker, acting head of Boeing Defense, Space and Security.
Boeing has now flown 102 missions with the system it has designed and built in Australia. The system “is really maturing,” Parker told reporters here at the Avalon Australian International Airshow.
The company would not identify the missile it plans to fire. Boeing says it will look at firing an air-to-ground weapon later.
MQ-28 flight tests have involved assessing jamming and radar payloads, as well as air vehicle performance.
Boeing has two of its Blk. 2 versions of the Ghost Bat now in production and expects to have 11 MQ-28s of Blk. 1 and Blk. 2 standard flying by year-end. The company this year also plans to demonstrate the MQ-28 teamed with the Australian E-7 airborne earning warning system and the F-35 fighter.
The Blk. 2 takes lessons learned from flight trials so far to make the system more robust, says Amy List, who runs Boeing Defense Australia. “It's upgrading a bunch of the equipment onboard to make sure that it's ready for the mission that it needs,” List says. One example is making the navigation system more resistant to jamming, she adds. Other adjustments are being implemented to make the system easier to produce and maintain. “There's a bunch of structural changes that we're making,” she says, to get the aircraft production ready.
The company is already running Blk. 2 software on a Blk. 1 MQ-28, Boeing says.
Funding for the program in Australia is due to run out in the coming months, but List says the company is in talks with the government about continuing the effort.
Boeing also plans to do some testing of the MQ-28 with other platforms in the U.S. as part of an effort to gain traction with the program there.
“I see potentially to get it back into the U.S. as we go forward,” Parker says. Boeing lost the initial round of the U.S. Air Force Collaborative Combat Aircraft program with a different aircraft concept, but Parker suggests that changes to requirements could open the market up for the MQ-28.
Anduril, meanwhile, is trying to make headway in the MQ-28’s home market with its Fury collaborative combat aircraft.
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