Airbus's U740-Valkyrie wingman drone makes its first flight

The takeoff was fiery and dramatic: a rocket shot the aircraft up to speed, and no runway was needed. On 12 October 2026, Airbus's uncrewed U740-Valkyrie completed its maiden flight over Northern Europe. It is a combat aircraft with no pilot on board, and it is meant to fly alongside crewed fighters.

The idea behind these machines is called Loyal Wingman, or Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA). A fighter pilot becomes a mission commander, supervising a squad of robotic teammates that take on the most hazardous and routine parts of a mission. The U740-Valkyrie is a partnership between Airbus and Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, and it is designed for the German Luftwaffe and European armed forces in general. Major powers are all keen on such drones, but many do not want to buy them from abroad, after the hard lessons learned from depending on foreign suppliers for defence equipment.

The key choice concerns the brain of the aircraft. Airbus took Kratos's Valkyrie airframe and integrated its own Multi-platform Autonomous Reconfigurable and Secure (MARS) mission system, which the company calls the "European brain" of the aircraft. The stated goal is that European customers keep full sovereignty over software, algorithms, data and hardware, and that the drone follows European protocols on when to engage an enemy. The same design also rules out a foreign supplier installing a remote kill switch that could shut the aircraft down.

The first flight tested much more than the launch. The rocket took the 30-ft (9-m) Valkyrie to its cruising speed of Mach 0.8, and the aircraft then validated its ability to manoeuvre at various altitudes and adjust its mission in flight, while its systems were checked for airworthiness. This was one flight. The sources available report no further test results, and the rocket launch and the mission system still have to prove themselves over many more flights.

For European air forces, the question is when this becomes usable. Airbus expects the U740-Valkyrie to enter service in 2029, and its chief executive, Mike Schoellhorn, says the company can deliver a "sovereign, affordable, and combat-ready CCA system by the end of the decade." According to Airbus, the drone could also extend the reach of the crewed Eurofighter, adding range, firepower and survivability. The aircraft can be launched by rail, which Airbus presents as operational resilience, and it can also take off and land on a conventional runway. Those promises, like the schedule, are Airbus's own, and they will be tested in the years before 2029.