The United Kingdom has put a name to its Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) effort, with Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry Luke Pollard announcing on 16 July 2026 that the autonomous fighter program will be called Storm Fighter at the Global Air and Space Chiefs’ Conference in London.
The program draws on the £300 million ($406 million) set aside for collaborative combat aircraft in the Defence Investment Plan (DIP) published on 2 July 2026.
Pollard presented Storm Fighter as the Royal Air Force’s (RAF) route to becoming “Europe’s first sixth generation Air Force,” a service built around three crewed combat types in the F-35, the Eurofighter Typhoon and the future Tempest.
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He cast the uncrewed loyal wingmen as both a “guardian angel and attack dog” for those aircraft, meant to add lethality and survivability for the pilots flying with them.
The naming revives a British push into autonomous combat aviation after Project Mosquito, an earlier loyal-wingman effort under the Lightweight Affordable Novel Combat Aircraft (LANCA) programme, was cancelled in 2022.
It sits inside a wider uncrewed-systems commitment of £5 billion for drones and advanced systems, part of a £298 billion Defence Investment Plan that directs £31 billion to air and space over four years.
Pollard also pointed to Project Vanquish, a trial of a jet-powered drone to fly with the F-35B force, as part of the same innovation base.
Storm Fighter builds directly on Storm Shroud, the uncrewed electronic warfare aircraft that entered RAF service on 2 May 2025 as the first of a family of Autonomous Collaborative Platforms (ACP).
That platform is a small catapult-launched drone based on the Tekever AR3, with a wingspan of about 3.5 metres and a range near 100 kilometres, carrying Leonardo UK’s BriteStorm jammer to fly ahead of crewed jets, blind hostile radars and disrupt integrated air defences.
The system was delivered in under six months and shaped by lessons from the war in Ukraine. It is now flown by 216 Squadron at RAF Waddington alongside the RAF Regiment and Royal Auxiliary Air Force.
Tekever, whose AR3 underpins the drone, has described the program as the Ministry of Defence and industry fielding capability at pace while supporting a UK sovereign industrial base.
Since entering service, 216 Squadron has put Storm Shroud through expanding trials, moving from single-aircraft sorties to several platforms operating together across RAF ranges.
Storm Shroud is also the template for two smaller aircraft the RAF set out at the same event.
Chief of the Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Sir Harv Smyth named Storm Chrome and Storm Fire, an electronic attack drone and a one-way attack type respectively, the latter with a projected range of up to 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometres).
Both smaller types are built on the existing Storm Shroud airframe, in contrast to the larger Storm Fighter, giving the RAF a family that spans radar-jamming, electronic attack and long-range strike.
The RAF has said the newer designs draw on the operational experience Storm Shroud has built in service.
Smyth framed the family in economic terms, arguing that Storm Fighter would shift the cost balance of air combat in the UK’s favour by absorbing risk on behalf of crewed jets.
Pollard described the wider settlement as a blueprint for an AI-enabled air force built around the F-35, Typhoon and Tempest.
The DIP plans for a technology demonstrator to fly by 2030 at the earliest, though the RAF wants one alongside a Typhoon as soon as 2027. Smyth has set a target of an operational CCA capability before the end of the decade.
BAE Systems and Boeing have both indicated interest in the requirement, with BAE putting forward its Autonomous Collaborative Platform concept ahead of a formal competition.
The wider air package also puts £1.1 billion into sustaining the Typhoon into the 2040s and more than £2 billion toward the first F-35As that return the RAF to NATO’s tactical nuclear mission.
Pollard argued the CCA work would lay the ground for exports, growth and cooperation with friendly nations.
Storm Fighter is meant to fly beside the future Tempest, the crewed core of the £8.6 billion Global Combat Air Programme design and testing phase.
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