BAE Systems has unveiled Brontanax, Britain’s first domestically designed Collaborative Combat Aircraft, with a first flight planned for 2027 and availability for Royal Air Force service targeted before the end of the decade.
The aircraft gives Britain a tangible route back into a global competition it had appeared to leave behind. The RAF abandoned its earlier Project Mosquito demonstrator in 2022 before an aircraft was built. BAE now says it has completed a full Brontanax prototype at Warton in Lancashire, moving the British effort beyond the design stage.
Similar in size to a Hawk trainer, Brontanax is intended to fly alongside crewed aircraft such as the Typhoon. BAE says it will carry out electronic warfare and precision strikes against airborne and ground targets, adding weapons and sensors without placing another pilot at risk.
A Typhoon pilot or a mission commander operating at distance would direct the aircraft. Its open architecture and modular design are intended to allow new payloads and software to be introduced without redesigning the entire platform. More than 500 BAE employees and 75 British companies have worked on the project.
The aircraft has so far been funded through BAE’s own research and development spending. The government has separately committed £300 million to launch Storm Fighter, the UK’s sovereign CCA programme. Defence Secretary Wes Streeting said at Farnborough that Brontanax would be adopted as its operational concept demonstrator, although the announcement does not amount to a production order.
BAE is targeting 70 to 80 per cent of the capability of a crewed fighter for less than a quarter of the cost, according to Reuters. That would place each aircraft at roughly $25 million. The economics are central to the CCA concept: air forces want larger numbers of aircraft able to carry weapons, jam radars or scout ahead of crewed fighters without paying for another full fleet of high-end jets.
Britain is entering a race already led by flying aircraft. Australia’s Boeing MQ-28 Ghost Bat first flew in 2021, passed 100 test flights in 2025 and has since conducted an air-to-air missile engagement and joined a multinational exercise. A working MQ-28 is on display at Farnborough, with Boeing positioning the aircraft for Australian service from 2028.
The United States is moving even more aggressively. The General Atomics YFQ-42A and Anduril YFQ-44A both began flying in 2025. On 15 July, the US Air Force announced that a YFQ-44A had fired an AIM-120 air-to-air missile during testing. It plans to acquire more than 150 combat-capable CCAs by the end of the decade.
Brontanax is therefore a catch-up programme in global terms. Its position within Europe is stronger. Airbus does not expect its larger U760 Ravenstorm to become available until the early 2030s, while its nearer-term U740 Valkyrie is based on an existing American aircraft and is targeted for German service in 2029.
Britain also retains experience from Taranis, the stealthy uncrewed combat demonstrator that first flew in 2013. Brontanax suggests that expertise survived the cancellation of Mosquito and has now been turned towards a more affordable aircraft that could be produced in numbers.
The next test is flight. A completed prototype and a government programme put Britain back in the contest, but the MQ-28 and American CCAs have already accumulated years of testing. If BAE can fly Brontanax in 2027 and make it available before 2030, the UK could still field one of Europe’s first sovereign collaborative combat aircraft.
