Every Robot Wingman Unveiled This Week

Every Robot Wingman Unveiled This Week

Walk the halls at Farnborough this week and you will trip over robot aeroplanes. Anduril unveiled a tiltrotor on Monday morning. BAE and Lockheed unveiled a jammer an hour or two later. Boeing parked an Australian one on the static line. General Atomics brought its...
The Ghost Bat Finally Came to Farnborough

The Ghost Bat Finally Came to Farnborough

Farnborough has been running since 1948. The Boeing MQ-28 Ghost Bat first flew in 2021. On Monday, finally, the two met. Australia’s uncrewed combat aircraft made its Farnborough debut on the show’s opening day — on static display, in the US Department of...
The Drone Was Already Down

The Drone Was Already Down

The drone had already been shot down. That is the detail that makes this loss different from the others. On Saturday, in northern Iraq, a US service member was killed during a controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance recovered from a downed Iranian one-way attack...
Israel Built a Jet That Attacks With Noise

Israel Built a Jet That Attacks With Noise

Most combat aircraft announced at airshows are defined by what they carry. Israel Aerospace Industries spent Monday introducing one defined by what it broadcasts. ELLYON has no bomb bay and no missile rails. Its weapon is a wideband electronically scanned jammer, and...
Sweden Wants Twelve More Gripens Back

Sweden Wants Twelve More Gripens Back

Sweden is giving Ukraine a fighter fleet. At Farnborough this week, the head of the Swedish Air Force explained how Sweden intends to avoid ending up smaller as a result. Major General Jonas Wikman told Breaking Defense that a further batch of twelve Gripen E fighters...
The Drone Built by Two Secret Labs

The Drone Built by Two Secret Labs

Skunk Works and FalconWorks are the two most secretive advanced-projects shops in Western aerospace. Lockheed Martin’s built the U-2, the SR-71 and the F-117. BAE Systems’ is the British equivalent, the place where the awkward, classified and interesting...