Boeing and Rheinmetall Partner to Offer MQ-28 Ghost Bat to Germany’s Air Force

Boeing and Rheinmetall are teaming up to put the world’s most flight-proven autonomous combat aircraft in Luftwaffe hands — and they have a $30M-per-unit price tag and a live missile kill to back it up.

Boeing and German defense manufacturer Rheinmetall announced March 31 a strategic partnership to offer the MQ-28 Ghost Bat collaborative combat aircraft to Germany’s Luftwaffe, setting up a transatlantic industrial showdown over one of Europe’s most consequential unmanned fighter contracts.

The two companies say Rheinmetall will serve as “system manager” for the MQ-28 in Germany, taking responsibility for integrating the autonomous jet into Bundeswehr command and weapons systems, tailoring it to German national requirements, and providing operational, maintenance, and logistical support to frontline operators. Rheinmetall estimates its share of a potential German contract in the three-digit millions of euros. Germany’s air force has said it aims to field a frontline collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) by 2029.

The bid positions a platform developed over eight years in Australia against competing bids from Airbus Defence and Space and American drone maker Kratos Defense & Security Solutions — and, potentially, a homegrown German startup.

The Ghost Bat’s Case: Flight Hours and a Missile Kill

The Boeing-Rheinmetall team’s central argument is maturity. The MQ-28, developed by Boeing Defence Australia in collaboration with the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), has logged more than 150 test flights — more than any comparable CCA platform currently available to international allies.

That record crossed a decisive threshold in December 2025, when a Ghost Bat destroyed an aerial target drone during Trial Kareela 25-4, a live-fire exercise at RAAF Base Woomera. The aircraft launched a Raytheon AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile against the target using only four high-level commands from human operators: takeoff, establishing a combat air patrol orbit, intercepting the target, and arming and releasing the missile. All tactical positioning and weapon release parameters were handled autonomously by the aircraft’s artificial intelligence — a mission architecture that reduced the human crew to battlefield managers rather than hands-on pilots.

Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger has emphasized that the partnership is designed to create a dedicated “industrial hub” in Germany and Europe for autonomous air systems, ensuring that integration, operation, and further development of the platform flow from a single, in-country source. The agreement also envisions a joint digital environment where German and Australian engineers collaborate on hardware and software innovations, enabling rapid capability updates without structural changes to the airframe.

The Ghost Bat measures approximately 38 feet (11.7 meters) in length with a 24-foot (7.3-meter) wingspan and is powered by a single Williams FJ33 turbofan. It flies at speeds up to Mach 0.9, operates at service ceilings above 40,000 feet, and carries a combat range exceeding 2,000 nautical miles. A modular nose section allows the airframe to be reconfigured quickly for air superiority, electronic warfare, or intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions. Boeing estimates the unit cost at approximately $30 million — about one-tenth the price of a crewed next-generation fighter.

The latest configuration, Block III — unveiled at the 2026 Singapore Airshow — features a lengthened wingspan, a 30 percent increase in fuel capacity, and internal weapons bays capable of carrying the AIM-120 AMRAAM or the GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb while preserving the aircraft’s low-observable profile.

Competition: Two American Drones, One European Startup

The Boeing-Rheinmetall bid faces two direct challengers.

Airbus Defence and Space and Kratos Defense & Security Solutions are offering a Europeanized version of the Kratos XQ-58A Valkyrie, a single-engine autonomous jet that has been flying in the United States since 2019. Airbus is adapting two Valkyries at its facility in Manching, near Munich, equipping them with a sovereign European mission system called MARS — Multiplatform Autonomous Reconfigurable and Secure — and plans to conduct maiden European flights later in 2026.

The Valkyrie’s operational distinction is runway independence: the aircraft can be launched from rocket-boosted rail systems and recovered by parachute, making it viable for dispersed operations where traditional airfields may be targeted early in a conflict. It also carries a longer published range — approximately 3,000 nautical miles against the Ghost Bat’s 2,000-plus — and a slightly higher service ceiling of 45,000 feet.

A third competitor, German defense startup Helsing, is developing the CA-1 Europa autonomous aircraft in partnership with sensor specialist HENSOLDT. The CA-1 targets a first flight in 2027 and operational service by 2031, though industry analysts note the Ghost Bat leads by several years in accumulated flight hours and technical development.

Germany’s Defense Spending Surge Fuels the Race

The procurement push is backed by a historic expansion in German defense spending. The Bundestag in November 2025 approved a 2026 defense allocation of €82.69 billion — roughly €20.2 billion more than the previous year’s level. Combined with €25.5 billion from a dedicated special fund, Germany’s total defense outlay for 2026 reaches approximately €108.2 billion, placing the Bundeswehr among the four highest-funded militaries in the world. Germany has amended its constitution to exempt military and intelligence spending from its debt-brake rule, with defense outlays targeted to reach 3.5 percent of GDP by 2029.

That budgetary shift has already transformed Rheinmetall’s financial outlook. The company reported €9.9 billion in revenue for 2025 and projects a 40 to 45 percent jump to between €14 billion and €14.5 billion in 2026, with an order backlog currently estimated at €63.8 billion. Rheinmetall is simultaneously divesting its civilian automotive operations to concentrate exclusively on defense.

Broader Strategic Picture

The CCA competition is unfolding against the backdrop of prolonged dysfunction within the Franco-German Future Combat Air System program, launched in 2017 to replace the Rafale and Eurofighter by 2040. Industrial disputes between Dassault Aviation and Airbus over workshare and intellectual property rights have stalled the project, with Dassault CEO Eric Trappier suggesting the 2040 target is likely already missed. That paralysis has sharpened Berlin’s interest in near-term, off-the-shelf autonomous solutions to fill the gap in combat air mass.

Germany’s defense minister, Boris Pistorius, visited Australia in March 2026, urging middle powers like Germany and Australia to “stick together” as nations historically reliant on American security guarantees reassess their strategic footing. Australia has signaled a willingness to transfer MQ-28 technology to Germany, potentially enabling European manufacturing of the Ghost Bat airframe — mirroring an existing arrangement in which Rheinmetall manufactures armored troop carriers in Queensland for the Australian military.

Japan also entered the MQ-28 orbit in September 2025, signing an agreement to participate in flight test observation and training, suggesting the platform may evolve into a standardized autonomous air vehicle across allied air forces in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters.

The global market for collaborative combat aircraft is projected to reach $2.21 billion by 2033, expanding at a compound annual growth rate of 12.73 percent, driven by AI advances, pilot risk reduction, and the growing strategic demand for affordable combat mass alongside crewed fifth-generation fighters.