Britain Unveils ‘Storm Fighter’: The Unmanned Wingman Set to Be ‘Guardian Angel and Attack Dog’

Britain’s Royal Air Force has named its uncrewed combat-wingman programme: Storm Fighter. Flying alongside Typhoon, F-35 and the future Tempest, these autonomous aircraft will act as both a “guardian angel” and an “attack dog” for crewed jets — with the stated goal of making the RAF “Europe’s first sixth-generation air force.”

At a Glance

Programme: Storm Fighter — Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA)
Role: “Guardian angel and attack dog” for crewed jets
Pairing: Typhoon, F-35 and the future Tempest (GCAP)
Claim: Europe’s first sixth-generation air force
Investment: ~£300 million for CCAs in the Defence Investment Plan
Sibling systems: Storm Chrome (electronic warfare), Storm Fire (~1,000-mile one-way attack drone)

The era in which uncrewed aircraft fight not behind expensive fighters but alongside them is arriving. On July 16, the RAF gave the British chapter of that vision a name: Storm Fighter. In the words of Defence Readiness and Industry Minister Luke Pollard, the programme “will make the RAF Europe’s first sixth-generation air force.”

Storm Fighter is a Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) effort. The idea is simple but transformative: autonomous aircraft flying next to a crewed jet that absorb threats, scout ahead or carry firepower. The RAF describes them as both a defensive “guardian angel” and an “attack dog” unleashed on the enemy.

The Collaborative Combat Aircraft concept has autonomous jets flying with crewed fighters to share risk and firepower. (Illustrative)

Guardian Angel and Attack Dog

Storm Fighter has two faces. As a “guardian angel,” it flies ahead of a crewed Typhoon or F-35, taking on the danger first and drawing radar detection, missile locks and electronic attack away from the manned aircraft. As an “attack dog,” it is the element that pushes first into contested airspace to occupy or strike targets. Either way the aim is the same: shield expensive crewed platforms from the riskiest tasks while building numerical and tactical edge with autonomous jets.

The programme is part of the RAF’s expanding “Storm” family. Chief of the Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Sir Harv Smyth said the service is growing its “Storm series of capabilities to remain ahead.” The family is more than Storm Fighter alone: Storm Chrome is an electronic-warfare drone, and Storm Fire has been unveiled as a roughly 1,000-mile one-way attack drone for the RAF Regiment.

AI Is Already Flying F-16s

The technology behind Storm Fighter is not emerging in a vacuum. The same week, DARPA and the U.S. Air Force said they had begun flying an AI-controlled F-16 at Eglin Air Force Base; the effort, running across six F-16 Block 42 jets, tests an autonomous capability to orchestrate complex, large-scale air-combat scenarios, with the lessons feeding directly into CCA programs. In short, London and Washington are looking the same way: future air warfare will be built on a hybrid architecture of crewed and uncrewed aircraft fighting together.

System	Role
Storm Fighter	Uncrewed combat wingman (guardian angel / attack dog)
Storm Chrome	Electronic-warfare drone
Storm Fire	~1,000-mile one-way attack drone
Tempest (GCAP)	Future crewed sixth-generation fighter

Turkey Has Seen This Film

The concept Britain named today is a field Turkey has been advancing in for some time. Baykar’s KIZILELMA is a concrete example of an unmanned combat aircraft designed to fly with crewed jets, and TUSAŞ’s ANKA-3 flying-wing carries a similar stealth-and-autonomy vision. KIZILELMA’s teaming and export scenarios with KAAN show that the “loyal wingman” architecture is not unique to the U.S. and Europe. The RAF’s claim to be “Europe’s first sixth-generation air force” is striking — but the uncrewed-wingman race is already firmly multipolar.