Boeing Made New Progress with Loyal Wingman

10 April 2020

Loyal Wingman fighterlike performance combat drone prototype (photo : Boeing)

Boeing's Loyal Wingman program achieves 'Weight on Wheels' milestone

Australia - Boeing Australia recently achieved two more milestones on the Royal Australian Air Force's Loyal Wingman – Advanced Development Program: weight on wheels and aircraft power on.

The development milestones for the unmanned aircraft come just weeks after completion of the first fuselage, allowing for rapid progress on systems installation and functional and integration testing from the aircraft's own landing gear.

"We're continuing at pace toward our goal of flying later this year, so that we can show our customer and the world what unmanned capability like this can do," said Dr. Shane Arnott, program director of the Boeing Airpower Teaming System. "The strong contributions from our industry team are powering our progress." (Boeing)

The Loyal Wingman for Singapore’s Air Force?

The Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) is in the midst of a far-ranging transformation that constitutes a larger effort by the city-state to transition its military to the next generation, with the teaming of traditional manned and unmanned platforms expected to play a pivotal role, explains Ben Ho.

In fact, the vision of the Singapore Armed Forces a decade and beyond from now, or SAF 2030, is one underpinned by cutting-edge capabilities that are highly network-capable, and recent procurements are exactly that.

As devised by Boeing, the Airpower Teaming System, to give the Loyal Wingman’s official name, will act as a very useful complement to the F-35. In this regard, Singapore should consider buying the drone when it becomes available on the market as it would help maintain the RSAF’s cutting edge post-2030.

Simply put, the Loyal Wingman will fly alongside a manned aircraft (one of the first drones to be able to do so) to augment it or act as a decoy to protect the latter from the enemy. Given its internal weapons bay, it will also have kinetic capabilities.


It is worth noting that the initial press release on the Loyal Wingman states that it will be capable of electronic warfare, as well as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

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