Germany Accelerates Remote Carrier Capability Development

German industry is accelerating efforts to introduce uncrewed collaborative combat platforms.

While Berlin has made the fielding of such capabilities a key component of its Future Combat Air System (FCAS) effort with France and Spain, industry is suggesting that Germany’s military chiefs do not wish to wait until the early 2040s—when the FCAS is supposed to deliver a new fighter and associated remote carrier uncrewed air systems—but instead want the capability much earlier.

• Airbus to adapt two-seat Eurofighter for remote carrier technology trials
• Wingman builds on experience with Barracuda and LOUT
• Diehl Defense unveils Feanix modular remote carrier system

At this year’s ILA Berlin Air Show, the German defense ministry and industry rolled out initiatives to support efforts that could deliver advanced uncrewed adjuncts to work with Germany’s Eurofighters and Lockheed Martin F-35s as soon as the 2030s.

The efforts appear to align with those of other European air forces that have set their sights on rolling out a capability before their future combat aircraft enter service. France is studying a Dassault Neuron-like uncrewed combat air vehicle (UCAV) that could support its Rafales from the same manufacturer, while the UK Royal Air Force is planning to introduce attritable autonomous collaborative platforms (ACP) in the 2030s. And, of course, the U.S. has several ongoing efforts under the collective banner of collaborative combat aircraft (CCA).

In addition to building mass, such platforms offer commanders new options for dealing with the increasingly advanced ground-based air defense systems that form the backbone of anti-access, area denial bubbles that could be deadly to the current generation of non-stealth combat aircraft.

Perhaps the most eye-catching German effort is Airbus’ Wingman platform concept; a full-scale mockup was unveiled at ILA. Larger than the Eurofighter, which it could go on to support, the delta-wing, potentially supersonic platform is at the more exquisite end of the CCA spectrum, Airbus Defense and Space CEO Michael Schoellhorn told reporters at the show. Despite the aircraft’s proposed capabilities, he insisted that it can be developed and delivered for one-third of the price of a crewed combat aircraft.

“It is not being designed to be the perfect solution but a good solution as early as possible that can be controlled with an enhanced Eurofighter,” Schoellhorn explained.

Wingman is just a concept now, but Airbus is already refining it through internally funded studies valued in the low-double-digit millions of euros. It builds on the manufacturer’s experience with the Barracuda UCAV concept that it built and flew in the mid-2000s as well as the Low-Observable UAV Testbed (LOUT) revealed in 2019 (AW&ST Nov. 11-24, 2019, p. 50).

Germany’s needs are the motivator for the effort, Schoellhorn said, but he noted opportunities for Spain, which also operates the Eurofighter.

Wingman is entirely separate from Airbus’ work on FCAS, but there are “connection points” that make it a “milestone” and “springboard” on the path to FCAS, he explained. “Germany very much believes in the connected, artificially enhanced uncrewed component as a component of FCAS, but their view is that if they only get it in 2040, it is too late for learning from Ukraine,” Schoellhorn added.

Carrying modular sensor payloads and weapons, Wingman would fly ahead of the crewed fighter to perform high-risk tasks, such as reconnaissance, electronic jamming, deception or destruction of enemy air defense systems. Weapons can be housed internally or mounted on the wings for more combat persistence.

Airbus is gathering an ecosystem of potential suppliers to support Wingman’s development. Among them is German artificial intelligence (AI) and software developer Helsing, whose technologies would enable autonomous operation while keeping the command pilot in the loop.

“For a wingman concept to work, you need to have some level of autonomy on the wingman but also to let it talk to the mothership, and the combination of that allows for lots of missions,” Helsing co-CEO Gundbert Scherf said at ILA. AI would be a “critical component” of Wingman by processing data from sensors and helping to optimize the aircraft subsystem, he explained.

For propulsion, Airbus is studying the Eurofighter’s Eurojet EJ200 engine, since it is available off-the-shelf. Still, Schoellhorn said the company is open to other options.

To get a head start in building its collaborative combat capability, Airbus has teamed with the German Air Force as well as industrial partners MBDA, Diehl and the FCAS Future Combat Mission System consortium to adapt a two-seat German Air Force Eurofighter into the System and Teaming Advanced Research (STAR) Demonstrator. The demonstrator will feature a decoupled rear cockpit that will be able to control UAS through data links and communication systems fitted into a pod underneath the aircraft. This builds on earlier experiments in the German Air Force’s Timber Express exercises in which converted target drones flew from a Learjet.

STAR will be operated as a German national development asset and form part of the National Test and Development Center for Eurofighter (NaTE EF). The operational test and evaluation unit is expected to be created in April 2025 to support the Eurofighter’s development. STAR will be one of four Eurofighters to be operated by the joint test unit, which will also include three instrumented production-standard aircraft.

“STAR will allow us to test new hardware that we might see in the future and integrate in a non-safety-critical, segregated way,” said Marco Gumbrecht, head of combat air systems at Airbus.

The modified Eurofighter is expected to start flight testing with the technologies around 2028. Among the platforms with which STAR could be tested is Diehl Defense’s Feanix—short for Future Effector Adaptable, Networked, Intelligent, Expendable—remote carrier, which was unveiled at the show. The sub-300-kg-class (660-lb.) turbojet-powered aircraft system is being proposed as a remote carrier option that could be available for use on the Eurofighter in the 2030s.

Designed to be launched from ships and multiple-launch rocket systems as well from the air, the Feanix system is intended to collaborate to strike its targets. As a modular platform, it can be kitted out with electronic warfare equipment or data links, or simply used as a cruise missile.

Like Wingman, Feanix has been developed on the company dime, but the German Air Force has expressed a wish to demonstrate the capability with a flying testbed in conjunction with STAR around 2028, Diehl Feanix Project Lead Alexander Brugger said.

Besides supporting the FCAS, STAR will likely inform next steps in the Eurofighter’s Long-Term Evolution,  since adding the ability to cooperate with remote carriers will require upgraded aircraft. Partner nation investment in that has been slow so far.