Aerial manned-unmanned teaming is the collaborative operation of manned and unmanned aircraft systems, typically in military contexts. The human pilot or crew of a manned aircraft controls, coordinates, or supervises one or more autonomous or semi-autonomous loyal wingman drones or unmanned fighter aircraft with loyal wingman capabilities or other types of unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) to improve situational awareness, reduce risk, better perform in complex environments, and possibly reduce the need for crewed units.
Examples of the concept include the loyal wingman drone also known as collaborative combat aircraft (CCA). Loyal wingman drones are intended to operate with manned combat aircraft, including sixth-generation fighters, and use an artificial intelligence (AI) "autonomy package" to increase its ability to operate without explicit human direction.
Characteristics Conceptualization Unmanned systems, including but not limited to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), 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 (MUM-T).
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 (loyal 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 (LOI) 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 Bayraktar Kızılelma and Boeing MQ-28 Ghost Bat are examples of the early explorations of the 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 (CCA)." This announcement marks the transition of the Kratos XQ-58 Valkyrie from an experimental testbed into a loyal wingman aircraft. On 22 June 2026, Turkey's Baykar and Italy's Leonardo tested a system where a manned M-346FA can control and coordinate with a Bayraktar Kızılelma unmanned aircraft. The Kızılelma autonomously took off, joined the M-346, changed formation, separated, and rejoined under the M-346 crew’s direction. The successful test is an important step toward future aerial manned-unmanned teaming using multiple autonomous aircraft.
There is also a Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program of the United States Air Force (USAF), 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. The USAF plans to spend more than $8.9 billion on CCA programs from fiscal years 2025 to 2029.Stephen Losey, 9 Oct 2025 US Air Force drone wingmen to get own squadrons, chief nominee says
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 (UCAV) and loyal wingman/CCA are both considered manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T) 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.
History of manned aircraft in aerial manned-unmanned teaming 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. Multinational Germany and Turkey
On 18 February 2026, a Baykar Bayraktar TB3 unmanned combat aerial vehicle successfully performed a flight demonstration in the Baltic region during NATO's Steadfast Dart 2026 exercise. The drone operated effectively in strong winds, freezing temperatures and heavy snowfall. The drone also successfully hit surface targets at sea with two MAM-L precision-guided munitions. After this, the Bayraktar TB3 also completed an eight-hour joint sortie with multiple Eurofighter Typhoon fighters of the German Air Force in Baltic Sea during the exercise. During this exercise, the Bayraktar TB-3 was launched from the Turkish Naval Forces's TCG Anadolu, the world's first military drone carrier ship, and covered 1,700 kilometers on its mission. The drone also captured aerial video of the Eurofighter Typhoon using its ASELFLIR 500 electro-optical reconnaissance, surveillance and targeting system made by the Turkish company Aselsan. This mission marked a significant integration of unmanned aerial vehicles with advanced fighter jets in a multinational drill with performing manned-unmanned teaming. The operation demonstrated the drone's capability to operate effectively within high-intensity alliance maneuvers.
Italy and Turkey
In May 2026, a Leonardo M-346 and a Bayraktar Kızılelma unmanned fighter aircraft with loyal wingman capabilities completed the first phase of live flight trials under the Leonardo–Baykar K-SWARM programme. During the tests, Kızılelma autonomously rejoined a Leonardo M-346 Master following take-off and conducted formation changes, separations, and rejoins in response to commands from the M-346 crew as part of crewed–uncrewed combat teaming (CUC-T) trials.
Turkey
Manned aircraft of the Turkish Air Force began integrating with unmanned loyal wingmen drone in early 2023. On April 24, 2023, a piloted F-16C fighter jet performed its first close formation flight alongside the Bayraktar Kızılelma unmanned fighter at the AKINCI Flight Training and Test Center in Çorlu. Shortly after, during the TEKNOFEST 2023 aerospace festival in Istanbul (April 27 – May 1), the F-16C of the SoloTürk demonstration aircraft executed daily public formation flights alongside the drone. On May 1, 2023, the final day of the festival, the SOLOTÜRK F-16 was joined by multiple Canadair NF-5 jets from the Turkish Stars aerobatic team to perform a historic fleet-concept formation flight with the Kızılelma. The role of manned aircraft in these tests expanded in November 2025, when one F-16 operated as a close-formation wingman to the Kızılelma, while a second F-16 acted as a hostile target. This allowed the unmanned platform to successfully detect the target F-16 using its own AESA radar and engage it with a simulated air-to-air missile.