BAE Systems Unveils Brontanax, the UK's First Collaborative Combat Aircraft

BAE Systems revealed Brontanax at the Farnborough International Airshow on July 22, an uncrewed autonomous jet roughly the size of a Hawk trainer, designed to fly alongside RAF Typhoons and targeting a first flight in 2027.

BAE Systems unveiled Brontanax, the United Kingdom's first collaborative combat aircraft, at the Farnborough International Airshow on July 22. The uncrewed, autonomous jet — the name derives from Ancient Greek for "thunder king" — is designed to fly as an armed wingman for crewed fighters, and the company is targeting a first flight in 2027.

The prototype was designed and built at Warton, Lancashire, by FalconWorks, BAE's rapid-prototyping division. It has a low-observable delta-wing planform with canted tails, a single engine and an air inlet mounted below the nose. BAE has not released dimensions, describing the airframe only as roughly the size of a BAE Systems Hawk trainer. The demonstrator flies with a Williams engine, while the company points to the Rolls-Royce Orpheus family as the longer-term powerplant.

BAE says Brontanax is intended to deliver 70 to 80 percent of a Typhoon's capability at 20 to 25 percent of the cost. It carries an internal weapons bay compatible with the RAF's current munitions, and its mission set spans electronic warfare and precision strike against both airborne and ground targets. The aircraft is built around an open, modular architecture and can be directed by a Eurofighter Typhoon pilot or by any mission commander; BAE has also run simulations of carrier operations.

The program is company-funded, at a cost BAE puts in the hundreds of millions of pounds. Concept work began in 2022 and was followed by an 18-month requirements and analysis phase. More than 500 BAE employees and over 75 large companies and smaller suppliers from the British aerospace sector have contributed. A senior BAE Systems executive said at the show that the intent was to "be ready at the time of need, rather than wait" for a customer to fund the work.

The unveiling follows the British government's announcement, the previous week, of StormFighter — a £300 million autonomous CCA effort under the Defence Investment Plan — and Brontanax is BAE's answer to that requirement. The Royal Air Force has set out an ambition to become Europe's first sixth-generation air force, and the company frames the aircraft as a stepping stone toward the Global Combat Air Programme, the trinational sixth-generation fighter being developed with Italy and Japan.

The crewed fleet Brontanax would supplement is a substantial one. The Royal Air Force operates 111 Eurofighter Typhoons and 40 F-35Bs with a further 22 on order, alongside 28 Hawk T2 advanced trainers, according to GlobalMilitary.net inventory data. The United Kingdom sits seventh in the global military power ranking, and pairing relatively small numbers of expensive crewed fighters with cheaper attritable aircraft is the central premise of the CCA concept on both sides of the Atlantic.

The reveal comes as the US CCA effort reaches its own milestones, with Anduril's YFQ-44A Fury firing its first live AIM-120 for the US Air Force earlier in July. Ground-based evaluation of the British aircraft is under way at Warton, with flight testing in UK airspace to follow. BAE is aiming for crewed-uncrewed teaming demonstrations with a Typhoon by the end of 2027 and an operational capability before the end of the decade.