U.S. F-15EX and MQ-28 Ghost Bat Teaming Marks New Era in Indo-Pacific Manned-Unmanned Air Combat.

The U.S. Air Force’s F-15EX Eagle II has flown alongside the Boeing Defence Australia MQ-28 Ghost Bat for the first time over the Philippine Sea during Exercise Valiant Shield 26, marking a major advance in operational manned-unmanned air combat for the Indo-Pacific. Images released by Pacific Air Forces on July 2, 2026, highlight how pairing the F-15EX’s command-and-control capabilities with the AI-enabled Ghost Bat could extend combat reach, improve survivability, and strengthen distributed airpower against increasingly contested threats.

The flight demonstrates how a crewed fighter can direct uncrewed aircraft to expand sensing, electronic warfare, and future strike capabilities while reducing the risk to human pilots. As Collaborative Combat Aircraft concepts move closer to operational service, the F-15EX and MQ-28 combination points toward a future air combat model built around networked autonomy, greater combat mass, and more resilient force projection across vast Indo-Pacific battlespaces.

Related Topic: Boeing’s F-15EX Multirole Fighter Jet To Lead MQ-28 Ghost Bat Drones In Future Air Combat

The U.S. Air Force’s F-15EX and MQ-28 Ghost Bat Pacific flight marks a major step toward manned-unmanned air combat in the Indo-Pacific (Picture Source: U.S. Air Force / Boeing)

On July 2, 2026, Pacific Air Forces, headquartered at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, shared imagery of a U.S. Air Force F-15EX Eagle II assigned to the 85th Test and Evaluation Squadron flying with a Boeing Defence Australia MQ-28 Ghost Bat over the Philippine Sea during Exercise Valiant Shield 26. The formation marks far more than a symbolic flight. It signals a major step toward operational manned-unmanned teaming in the Indo-Pacific. By pairing the F-15EX’s high-end sensors, payload capacity and two-seat command configuration with the AI-enabled MQ-28 Ghost Bat, the U.S. Air Force and allied partners are testing a new model of air combat built around reach, survivability and distributed lethality.

The Pacific debut of the F-15EX Eagle II and MQ-28 Ghost Bat is a significant milestone for manned-unmanned teaming, known as MUM-T, and for the wider development of Collaborative Combat Aircraft. During Valiant Shield 26, the MQ-28 is being integrated with U.S. and allied forces to refine tactics, techniques and procedures for human-machine teaming in a multi-domain environment. For the Indo-Pacific theater, where distance, contested airspace and missile threats shape every operational plan, the appearance of the Ghost Bat alongside the F-15EX is a strong indicator that future airpower will depend on crewed aircraft controlling and exploiting uncrewed systems across extended battlespace.

The F-15EX Eagle II is particularly well positioned for this role. Developed as the most advanced version of the F-15 family, the aircraft combines long range, high speed, a large weapons payload and advanced digital architecture. Boeing describes the F-15EX as an upgradeable fighter with digital fly-by-wire controls, an all-glass cockpit, open mission systems architecture, advanced AESA radar, the Eagle Passive/Active Warning and Survivability System, and networking capabilities designed to support collaborative operations with manned and unmanned systems. Its two-seat configuration is central to this concept, allowing the pilot to focus on aircraft employment while a weapon systems officer can manage sensors, communications, weapons and potentially Collaborative Combat Aircraft operations.

The MQ-28 Ghost Bat adds the uncrewed layer to this future combat formation. Developed by Boeing Australia with support from the Royal Australian Air Force, the aircraft is designed as an uncrewed Collaborative Combat Aircraft and force multiplier for advanced multi-mission air combat operations. With a range of more than 2,000 nautical miles, equivalent to around 3,700 km, fighter-compatible speed up to Mach 0.9 and a ceiling above 40,000 ft, the Ghost Bat can act as an off-board sensor, electronic-support node, decoy or potential future weapons platform. Its modular missionized nose and open architecture allow the aircraft to be adapted for different mission sets, from intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance to tactical early warning and other payload-driven roles.

The F-15EX/MQ-28 combination changes the geometry of air combat by separating risk, sensing and firepower across a wider battlespace. Instead of forcing a crewed fighter to penetrate deep into the most dangerous zones, the F-15EX can remain at a more survivable distance as a high-capacity command, sensor-fusion and weapons node, while one or more MQ-28 Ghost Bats move forward to expand the formation’s detection range, complicate enemy targeting and absorb the highest-risk mission profiles away from human pilots. In this model, the Ghost Bat performs the heavy lifting at the edge of the threat envelope, acting as an off-board extension of the crewed fighter, while the Eagle II uses its powerful radar, electronic warfare suite, data links, processing capacity and weapons load to coordinate effects from a protected position. This gives the force a new way to generate combat mass, sensor reach and operational tempo without concentrating every critical sensor, weapon or decision-maker on a single crewed aircraft.

This concept is closely aligned with Boeing’s earlier presentation of the F-15EX as a potential command hub for MQ-28 Ghost Bat drones. Analysis published by Army Recognition in November 2025 highlighted how the two-seat Eagle II could serve as a battle-management platform for a network of uncrewed aircraft, enabling the weapon systems officer to supervise unmanned teammates, manage targeting data and coordinate sensor inputs in real time. That vision is now gaining operational weight in the Pacific, where the U.S. and its allies must fight across vast distances while facing increasingly dense anti-access and area-denial networks. The F-15EX brings persistence, payload, crew capacity, processing power and weapons carriage; the MQ-28 brings autonomy, forward reach, modular payload options and risk-tolerant presence inside contested zones.

This milestone reinforces a major shift in the U.S. Pacific posture toward distributed, resilient and networked airpower. Valiant Shield is designed to integrate joint forces across sea, air, land, space and cyberspace, making it an ideal environment to test whether Collaborative Combat Aircraft can move beyond experimentation and contribute to operational kill chains. The timing is especially relevant as the F-15EX is being prepared for long-term integration at Kadena Air Base in Japan, one of the most important U.S. airpower hubs in the Western Pacific. The emerging combination of F-15EX forward presence and MQ-28 teaming concepts suggests that the U.S. Air Force is building a posture in which crewed fighters, uncrewed aircraft, tankers, command-and-control assets and allied platforms operate as a connected combat ecosystem, able to disperse, share data and generate effects faster than traditional aircraft packages.

The military implications are clear. In a potential Indo-Pacific contingency, manned-unmanned teaming could allow the U.S. and allied air forces to generate more sorties, expand surveillance coverage, saturate enemy defenses and preserve high-value crewed aircraft for decisive moments. For adversaries, this creates a more complex targeting problem: destroying or tracking a single fighter is no longer enough if the actual sensor nodes, decoys or strike extensions are distributed among semi-autonomous platforms operating ahead, beside or below the crewed aircraft. For the U.S. Air Force, the F-15EX/MQ-28 pairing offers a practical bridge between today’s fighter force and tomorrow’s autonomous air combat architecture.

The appearance of the F-15EX Eagle II and MQ-28 Ghost Bat over the Philippine Sea represents a turning point in the evolution of Indo-Pacific airpower. It shows that manned-unmanned teaming is no longer a distant concept, but an emerging operational reality being tested in one of the world’s most strategically sensitive theaters. The F-15EX provides the radar, payload, crew capacity and command architecture; the MQ-28 provides reach, autonomy, modularity and survivable forward presence. Together, they send a powerful message: future air superiority in the Pacific will be won not by a single aircraft type, but by connected formations of crewed and uncrewed systems able to sense, decide and strike faster than the enemy can react.

Written by Teoman S. Nicanci – Defense Analyst, Army Recognition Group

Teoman S. Nicanci holds degrees in Political Science, Comparative and International Politics, and International Relations and Diplomacy from leading Belgian universities, with research focused on Russian strategic behavior, defense technology, and modern warfare. He is a defense analyst at Army Recognition, specializing in the global defense industry, military armament, and emerging defense technologies.

Explore More Defense News

• Land Defense News
• Naval Defense News
• Defense Aerospace News