First flight of the Boeing ATS Loyal Wingman | Photo: Australian Department of Defence
Boeing is offering its Loyal Wingman concept to international customers.
Director of Boeing’s Airpower Teaming System (ATS), Australia and International, Glen Ferguson, introduced the concept to media before the Dubai Air Show 2021, saying they’re taking the uncrewed, autonomous air vehicle to the international market.
“We’re discussing ATS globally because we see a significant market for this capability. While we can’t offer specifics, we think customers around the world, based on the similar challenge, need to increase the force mass to match and over-match future threats — but to do so affordably, with less risk than the end systems. And we think that ATS is really leading the path to the market to provide that disruptive capability,” he said.
Concept
Boeing’s ATS Loyal Wingman is a pilotless jet aircraft almost as large as a conventional, manned fighter and with as much range, capable of flying missions autonomously while maintaining safe distance, commanded by ‘trusted artificial intelligence’, independently or in support of manned aircraft like an F/A-18 Super Hornet, an E7 Wedgetail or an F-35, that can deploy a variable sensor capability across the ISR spectrum, with a swappable modular payload nose that has a volume of close to 1,500 litres.
Describing it as a ‘force-multiplier’, Ferguson said, “It was designed to create a disruptive advantage for forces,” adding, “We get combat mass for your missions and also we help to project and protect the forces. Really, it’s a complementary and extended element of the main vehicle, and we do this through smart teaming using existing military vehicles.”
Boeing has worked on unmanned concepts before, from configuring optionally-manned F-16 called the QF-16 that the U.S. Air Force uses for target practice, test-flying two autonomously controlled E/A-18 aircraft mission controlled by a third Growler in 2020, and demonstrating the refuelling capability of the carrier-capable MQ-25 unmanned mid-air refueller. But the Loyal Wingman is a very different bird, with its artificial intelligence flying the aircraft reliably and the large swappable payload that can deploy a rainbow of ISR capabilities while matching the range of accompanying aircraft in pursuit of a platform that is, according to Ferguson, ‘attritable, affordable, disruptive and capable of providing combat mass to project and protect manned aircraft’.
Boeing had two objectives behind the ATS Loyal Wingman concept. “When we designed ATS we really set ourselves the goal of only having two major requirements and that was cost and schedule. And so everything that’s being done with the design of this air vehicle has been done to make sure that we can do it fast to beat the market and secondly to keep it affordable. So the whole design criteria with ATS has been to keep it to the really small fraction of the crewed fighter. So that it actually can be attritable. Because it if doesn’t achieve that cost goal it becomes too expensive to actually use in the way you want to use it,” said Ferguson.
Cheap, Attritable Fighter-Like Size, Range & Performance
It’s unmanned and so it’s dispensable, and it’s dispensable by being inexpensive. “The key point is it’s attritable and we do that by making it affordable. It’s reusable and its whole design criteria is to give combat mass to the mission,” explained Ferguson.
It’s intended to keep up with other aircraft in operations. “It’s designed to be fighter-like in its performance, its size, its speed and its range. We did this so that it contributes to the fighter force or the aircraft that they’re supporting in a complementary way without being a burden on the system,” he said, also pointing out the manned-unmanned teaming could be in variable ratios. “We’re representing that as having multiple (unmanned) aircraft communicating with just one crewed aircraft. So it’s a one-to-many relationship and I think the other point to make is that most of the autonomy is automatic here. So when you say control — the control is not a day-to-day, second-to-second thing – most of it is done with really smart, trusted artificial intelligence.”
Social Distancing
And it does that without risk to other aircraft, something that has been a major concern for civilian airspace regulators, for example.
“We do that through a high level of trusted intelligent artificial intelligence. It can fly — sort-of independently or predominantly, we use that artificial intelligence to do teaming at a safe distance,” said Ferguson.
Modular, Replaceable Payload
A key feature of the ATS Loyal Wingman is the replaceable, modular nose, which can be configured with a variety of payloads, given its volume of almost 1,500 litres.
“The nose can be rapidly changed in the field so we can have a multiple sensor of sensor packages to do intelligence surveillance reconnaissance and tactical early warning missions. It gives you a lot of flexibility for how you might package your force and also how you might reconfigure that when you have different missions to be done on the next day,” said Ferguson, pointing out that this is something that could be tailored to each operators requirements. “This missionization is really a country-specific need. We are designing quite a number of sensor packages now but I think one of the key support features of this platform is that it allows individual nations to develop their own key capabilities that helps them with their own national prosperity and sovereignty objectives,” he said, adding, “From a sensor package perspective we’re working on quite a number of sensor packages. We can’t go through the details of what they are right now, but the beauty of having the nose being replaceable is that we can we be really flexible in what we can put in those noses. And individual countries can really start planning what they might want to put in that nose to complement their force strengths.”
Platform Agnostic
The compatibility of the ATS Loyal Wingman is not limited to western-equipped air forces. Potential international customers can deploy the ATS Loyal Wingman to team with the existing aircraft in their fleet, even if they’re not of western origin. “From a compatibility with the existing forces we have complete flexibility to use whatever datalink in the way of communications mechanism is needed to integrate back into the air vehicle. So we are pretty flexible in what we can do. We’re obviously taking certain approaches right now that might be compatible with say — the Australian air force but we have complete flexibility to put whatever mechanism you want to put into the air vehicle — into the nose to create that integrated system to your own defence force,” explained Ferguson.
Interestingly, Boeing isn’t even working on any manned aircraft counterpart because one of the objectives of the concept is for it to be able to work with any existing capability. “There is no work on the manned aircraft system because the design of this aircraft is to work through existing capabilities. So, what that means is that any aircraft can work in conjunction with ATS as a supplementary element to the force. So we have no plan to do the manned piece of it. We are the supplementary element of the capability you already have,” according to Ferguson.
The Loyal Wingman is the first military aircraft to be built in Australia in 50 years. The Australians have doubled their initial order of three aircraft to six after initially investing USD 31 million in the program, a figure that has gone up to USD 115 million over three years. Boeing conducted the first flights of the first two aircraft earlier this year.
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