Manned-unmanned teaming
Manned-unmanned teaming refers to the collaborative operation of manned and unmanned systems, typically in military or aerospace contexts, to enhance mission effectiveness. It enables human operators to control, coordinate, or supervise autonomous or semi-autonomous platforms, such as drones or robotic systems, to improve situational awareness, reduce risk, and optimize performance in complex environments.
The concept is also referred to as a loyal wingman drone, or by the United States Air Force as the collaborative combat aircraft. CCAs are intended to operate in collaborative teams with the next generation of manned combat aircraft, including sixth-generation fighters. Unlike conventional UCAVs, the CCA intends to use an artificial intelligence "autonomy package" to increase survivability while maintaining low costs. The USAF plans to spend more than $8.9 billion on its CCA programs from fiscal years 2025 to 2029. The USAF CCAs will have their own squadrons.
The success of the CCA program may lessen the need for additional manned squadrons.
Characteristics
Conceptualization
Unmanned systems, including but not limited to unmanned aerial vehicles, require remote control, with humans overseeing missions that unmanned systems perform semi- or automated mission segments. With advancements in electronics on both the unmanned system side and the controller side, increased mission autonomy was achieved, including automatic take-off and landing, autonomous mission planning, automatic target recognition, tracking, and engagement. Combined with artificial intelligence and machine learning, human operators gradually reduced their roles in direct control, instead took supervisory roles to approve or deny the machine’s decisions. The operation in which semi-autonomous systems perform specific tasks based on human orders is called Manned-Unmanned Teaming.The highest autonomy level enables unmanned platforms to operate within integrated manned-unmanned teams, with one operator controlling multiple unmanned platforms, and when human control is unavailable, perform their mission independently. Manned-Unmanned Teaming ensures efficient and economic use of resources on the battlefield. Drone swarm and robotic wingman are both envisioned as examples of the Manned-Unmanned Teaming operation.
The United States Army Aviation Center of Excellence defined MUM-T as the "synchronized employment of soldier, manned and unmanned air and ground vehicles, robotics, and sensors to achieve enhanced situational understanding, greater lethality, and improved survivability".
In 2002, NATO STANAG 4586 defined Levels of Interoperability for Manned-Unmanned Teaming operation via data links, with Level 1 defining the weakest interoperability and most basic remote controlled system, while Level 5 denoted unmanned aerial vehicles capable of self-launch and recovery. Higher levels of LOI and autonomy are being actively explored by military planners, including ways for a single manned platform to control multiple unmanned systems, enabling AI-assisted formation flight, and controlling fully autonomous unmanned systems via a network.
Loyal wingman
The loyal wingman is a military drone with an onboard AI control system and the capability to carry and deliver a significant military weapons load. The AI system is envisaged as being significantly lighter and lower-cost than a human pilot with their associated life support systems, but to offer comparable capability in flying the aircraft and in mission execution.Some concepts depict a standardized aircraft deployed in two variants: one as a sixth-generation fighter with a human pilot and/or battle commander in the cockpit, and the other as a loyal wingman with an AI system substituted in the same location. BAE Systems envisages the Tempest to be capable of operating in both manned and unmanned configurations.
Another concept is to develop a dedicated, affordable, smaller, and cheaper autonomous wingman that can be integrated into a crewed and uncrewed aircraft team system. The drone, in turn, carries its own munitions. The reduced cost would make the platform attritable and replaceable in case of loss. The Boeing MQ-28 Ghost Bat was one of the early explorations of the expendable loyal wingman. On January 8, 2026, The U.S. Marine Corps has officially selected Northrop Grumman and Kratos to develop its first operational "Collaborative Combat Aircraft." This announcement marks the transition of the Kratos XQ-58 Valkyrie from an experimental testbed into a loyal wingman aircraft.
There is also a Collaborative Combat Aircraft program of the United States Air Force, the Skyborg, that explored a similar theme—autonomous fighters that can work alongside sixth-generation fighters. Both MQ-28 and Kratos XQ-58 Valkyrie were considered options in the early CCA developments.
Role
The principal application is to elevate the role of human pilots to mission commanders, leaving AIs as "loyal wingmen" to operate under their tactical control as high-skill operators of relatively low-cost robotic craft.Loyal wingmen can perform other missions as well, as "a sensor, as a shooter, as a weapons carrier, as a cost reducer".
Regular unmanned combat aerial vehicle and loyal wingman/CCA are both considered manned-unmanned teaming capable aircraft; however, a distinguishing difference between them is often made by some defense analysts. CCAs are manned platforms' loyal wingman, providing extended-range strikes, frontline intelligence, and additional layers of protection for manned assets, which requires affordability for ‘combat mass’. The UCAVs are considered higher-performance aircraft that can perform independent operations and 'traditional' roles like that of fighter and strike aircraft. Nevertheless, both CCAs and UCAVs are aimed at having collaborative capabilities.
Capabilities
Despite some reports focusing on the attrition aspect of the CCA, USAF Secretary Frank Kendall later clarified that CCA's focus on the "affordable mass" doesn't mean the platforms are expandable or attritable. Kendall believed CCA should be remotely controlled versions of targeting pods, electronic warfare pods, or weapons carriers to provide additional sensors and munitions; to balance affordability and capability. According to him, the platforms should have sufficient intelligence and onboard defense systems to survive on the battlefield, playing "100 roles":The price point of a CCA will determine how many types of missions a single airframe can perform, with more expensive designs able to be multirole aircraft, while cheaper designs could be modular to perform different tasks on different days, which can afford to be lost in combat. Two increments are planned: increment 1 CCAs will have sensor and targeting systems to focus on carrying additional munitions for manned aircraft; increment 2 CCAs will have greater stealth and autonomy to perform missions including EW, SEAD, and potentially act as decoys. It's possible that two distinct solutions could emerge from this stage, one high-end and "exquisite" and the other more basic and inexpensive, oriented around a single mission. Service officials started out developing the increment 2 CCA as a high-end, stealthy platform, but wargames showing that large numbers of low-end aircraft would be more effective than small numbers of high-end versions in a simulated Pacific conflict influenced them to rethink their approach.
The USAF is seeking CCAs with greater thrust than the current MQ-28 and the XQ-58.
By country
The concept of the loyal wingman arose in the early 2000s and, since then, countries such as Australia, China, Japan, Russia, Turkey, the UK and the US have been researching and developing the necessary design criteria and technologies.Australia
is leading development of the MQ-28 Ghost Bat loyal wingman for the RAAF, with BAE Systems Australia providing much of the avionics. The MQ-28 was first flown in 2021 and since then, at least 8 aircraft have been built.China
China is known to be developing various "loyal wingman" prototypes such as AVIC Dark Sword, which is a concept first revealed in 2006. As of 2019, China manufactures drones at large scale and has well-developed swarming technology. However, the planned level of autonomy and integration with these systems is not known.The Rand Corporation reported that PLA was actively monitoring MUM-T concept developments in the United States, identifying US vulnerabilities and developing countermeasures since 2015.
Crewed component
China planned to use twin-seat stealth fighters to coordinate unmanned combat aerial vehicle and "loyal wingman" platforms via networking and datalink. The advantage of a second operator includes the potential for better interpreting and exploiting the enormous sensory data collected by all friendly platforms, which could overload the limited cognitive and processing capacity for a single human, especially in a contested air combat environment. The back-seater operator would focus on managing the manned or unmanned aircraft fleet, reducing the pilot's workload in a contested air combat environment. With increased automation and artificial intelligence in the aircraft system, the two men crew would likely be able to delegate more complex AEW&C tasks, absorb information, and make tactical decisions.The stealth platform could act as a more survivable and distributed alternative to traditional control aircraft, as the stealth allows them to collect data from "loyal wingman" systems and sensors on the frontline.The development of a twin-seater variant of the Chengdu J-20 was hinted at by its chief designer in 2019. In January 2021, Aviation Industry Corporation of China released computer renderings of the twin-seat variant of the J-20 fighter in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the jet's maiden flight. In February 2021, a South China Morning Post infographic depicted a twin-seat J-20 variant powered by thrust vectoring WS-10C. In October 2021, a taxiing prototype, dubbed J-20S by analysts, was spotted near Chengdu Aircraft Corporation facilities, making J-20S the first-ever two-seat stealth fighter.
In July 2024, USAF Major Joshua Campbell of CASI recommended that the USAF evaluate the concept of twin-seat J-20 fighters for future combat systems. Campbell found merit in China's approach to human-to-machine interaction in an operationally limited combat environment with information saturation. He believed the twin-seat J-20, with its secondary pilot serving as a control operator for managing collaborative combat aircraft and other aircraft in formation, could serve as an inspiration for the F-15EX program and air platforms beyond traditional roles before more advanced AI decision-maker becomes available.
In January 2019, Dr. Wang Haifeng, chief designer of the Chengdu Aircraft Corporation announced that China had begun pre-research on a new aircraft, which would include capability to control unmmaned aircraft. Intelligence and rumors indicated the Chinese designs would use tailless flying wing or flying arrowhead configuration that can provide greater broadband stealth characteristics compared to the previous generation of fighters, new propulsion technologies, improved sensors allowing the aircraft to operate alongsideManned-Unmanned Teaming aircraft or unmanned combat aerial vehicles, etc.
On 26 December 2024, a prototype of the Chengdu J-36 was spotted in China. Based on the available footage, analysts Bill Sweetman, writing for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, speculated that J-36 could serve as a supercruising launching platform for long-range missiles and a command and control hub for other manned and unmanned aircraft. Justin Bronk of the Royal United Services Institute, suggested large crewed aircraft can offer unique strategic advantages for China and the US in the Indo-Pacific region, which has limited forward bases and increasing threats from missiles, drones, and electronic warfare environment. Bronk argued that while distributed uncrewed systems, such as collaborative combat aircraft, offer cost-effective combat mass, their reliance on datalinks makes them vulnerable to EW disruption, highlighting the enduring value of crewed aircraft like J-36, which can operate independently in contested environments.