Airbus just pulled the wraps off the U760 Ravenstorm at the ILA Berlin Air Show this week. Europe’s making its move in the autonomous fighter wingman race—and timing matters. The U.S. Air Force is already pushing hard on its own Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) programs, with the Pentagon planning to spend $8.9 billion on the capability from fiscal years 2025 through 2029.
The Ravenstorm itself is a lean machine: 13 meters long, 10-meter wingspan, roughly 6 tonnes at maximum takeoff weight. It’s got a mid-mounted swept wing, twin tails, and a dorsal air intake designed for low-observable characteristics. The demo unit on display in the Berlin convention hall carried a mock payload of two MBDA Meteor air-to-air missiles and four MBDA SPEAR air-to-ground missiles—a clear signal that this thing is built to fight across multiple domains.
A Sovereign European Answer to U.S. Advances
This unveiling is Airbus’s biggest concrete push into the CCA market yet. The U.S. has been moving fast. In December 2025, Boeing’s MQ-28 Ghost Bat pulled off an autonomous air-to-air missile engagement—it fired an AIM-120 at a target drone over Australia’s Woomera Test Range while flying as a loyal wingman to an E-7A Wedgetail and F/A-18F Super Hornet. Then just this January, the U.S. Marine Corps officially tapped Northrop Grumman and Kratos to build operational CCA variants, transforming the experimental XQ-58A Valkyrie into a production program.
Airbus is pitching the Ravenstorm as “Europe’s sovereign solution”—a pointed contrast to U.S.-origin platforms locked down by International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). The U740, Airbus’s customized variant of the Kratos XQ-58A Valkyrie with a 2029 entry-into-service target for the German Air Force, carries those U.S. export restrictions. The Ravenstorm doesn’t. That matters to European defense ministries facing a tougher geopolitical landscape. No restrictions mean no leverage from Washington.
“Whatever uncrewed or drone capability our customers need to strengthen sovereign air power, we deliver,” said Mike Schoellhorn, CEO of Airbus Defence and Space, in remarks released on the eve of the show.
Autonomy Architecture and Operational Scope
The U760 will run on Airbus’s Multiplatform Autonomous Reconfigurable and Secure (MARS) mission system. That ties into AI-supported software called Mindshare. Airbus tested the concept in 2024 using two uncrewed Primoco aircraft doing threat detection and data exchange with barely any human hands on the controls—a proof of concept now feeding into Ravenstorm’s design.
Mission-wise, the platform covers air-to-air combat with long and medium-range missiles, air-to-ground precision strikes, and electronic warfare including suppression of enemy air defenses. The internal payload bay tops 500 kilograms, and it can carry additional ordnance externally. Cruise speed is high-subsonic. Delivery date: 2032.
Racing the Clock After FCAS Collapse
The Ravenstorm’s debut hits as Europe scrambles to rebuild its defense-aviation strategy. The Franco-German Future Combat Air System (FCAS) program just fell apart. The crewed New Generation Fighter—supposed to be the centerpiece—collapsed in early June over workshare disagreements between Airbus and Dassault Aviation. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius called it an “ambitious, large-scale European project collapsing in the face of reality.”
Airbus moved fast. Within hours of that announcement, the company rebranded its entire unmanned portfolio under a new “U” nomenclature—”A” remains for crewed fixed-wing aircraft—and announced Team Gen 6, a German-led industry consortium tasked with developing a sovereign sixth-generation fighter by 2035.
The timing signals Airbus’s strategic repositioning. The Ravenstorm and U740 represent the company’s commitment to the unmanned combat aircraft ecosystem as Europe charts its defense future. Germany, Poland, and other European NATO members are now shopping around—more F-35s, GCAP membership, custom autonomous systems, you name it. Airbus has multiple shots at revenue.
What to Watch
Germany hasn’t formally selected either the Ravenstorm or U740 yet. Keep an eye on German procurement decisions and whether the Luftwaffe commits funding to either platform in its next defense budget cycle.
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