Loyal wingmen


A consortium of Germany, France and Spain —with Belgium joining as an observer last year —promises to have the first airworthy demonstrators of the futuristic idea flying by this decade’s end. 

Artificial intelligence will play a key role in practically all aspects of the system, engineers and experts told Defense News in a series of interviews, influencing everything from the platform’s development to kill-chain decisions and even the very things that pilots see.

The key novelty of FCAS, compared to existing platforms, is its use of so-called loyal wingmen. These drones are to travel alongside the main, manned aircraft and act to enhance the mission by
  • Collecting more data, 
  • Allowing for more firepower or 
  • Simply overwhelming enemy defenses by sheer numbers. 
“Because you don’t want to have to control these out of a cockpit with a stick and throttle,” these drones will require a certain level of automation or autonomy, said Thomas Grohs, Airbus’ head of future capabilities and chief engineer of the FCAS project.


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