Germany to Test U.S. XQ-58A Valkyrie Combat Drone as Eurofighter Wingman.

Airbus is preparing two German-configured Kratos XQ-58A Valkyrie uncrewed combat aircraft for first flight later this year in Manching, integrating a sovereign European mission system for the Luftwaffe. The program could give Germany an operational collaborative combat drone capability by 2029 while linking the current Eurofighter fleet to Europe’s future FCAS fighter ecosystem.

Airbus is preparing the first two German-missionized Valkyries for flight, a move intended to give the Luftwaffe a near-term uncrewed combat aircraft that can add affordable mass, push sensors and weapons deeper into contested airspace, and keep Eurofighter crews out of the most lethal parts of the fight. The company says the two Kratos-built aircraft in Manching will fly later this year with Airbus’ sovereign European mission system and are part of a plan to offer Germany an operational Uncrewed Collaborative Combat Aircraft capability by 2029. That makes this less a technology demonstrator than a bid to field a usable combat adjunct before Europe’s longer-range FCAS vision matures.
Follow Army Recognition on Google News at this link

Airbus is preparing two German-missionized XQ-58A Valkyrie uncrewed combat aircraft for first flight, combining the U.S.-built airframe with a sovereign European mission system to support future Luftwaffe collaborative combat operations alongside Eurofighters (Picture source: Army Recognition Group).

Germany needs combat mass and survivable adjunct aircraft in this decade, while Airbus needs a bridge from today’s Eurofighter fleet to the first-generation Wingman and then to the broader FCAS architecture envisioned for the 2030s and 2040 horizon. Airbus framed the partnership with Kratos in July 2025 as a way to avoid developing a new air vehicle from scratch, instead pairing a flight-proven American platform with a sovereign European mission core. That approach is gaining weight as FCAS remains a phased, long-term effort and its industrial politics have come under visible strain in recent months.

The baseline XQ-58A remains a serious tactical air vehicle, not a light quadcopter wrapped in stealth rhetoric. Kratos’ published data lists a 30 ft length, 27 ft wingspan, 2,500 lb dry weight, 6,000 lb maximum launch weight, cruise speed of 0.72 Mach, dash speed of 0.85 Mach, and operating altitude from 50 ft above ground level to 45,000 ft mean sea level. Payload architecture is central to its combat value: the aircraft is designed around an internal bomb bay rated at 600 lb plus another 600 lb of mid-wing capacity, allowing it to preserve a low-observable configuration for higher-risk penetrations or trade signature for added effectors when the mission demands it. Kratos also describes the Valkyrie as runway-flexible and suitable for remote or austere operations, while Airbus’ earlier partnership language highlighted the rail-launched, low-observable character of the platform.

That airframe already has the pedigree Germany needs. The Valkyrie first flew in March 2019 during a 76-minute test under the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory’s Low Cost Attritable Aircraft Technology portfolio, reaching first flight a little more than 2.5 years after contract award. AFRL later used the aircraft to validate formation operations with F-22s and F-35s in 2020 and, in 2021, demonstrated the first internal-bay payload release by launching an ALTIUS-600 small unmanned aircraft from the Valkyrie. Those tests matter because they prove the aircraft is not merely capable of carrying weapons or adjunct payloads on paper; it has already shown the basic mechanics of teaming, bay operation, and modular payload employment in flight.

The biggest difference between the original Valkyrie and the German version is therefore not the outer mold line but the combat brain, the command logic, and the sovereignty model. The original aircraft was built as an American low-cost attritable strike demonstrator with manual or pre-programmed control options and later evolved through U.S. autonomy and teaming experiments. The German version inserts Airbus’ Multiplatform Autonomous Reconfigurable and Secure mission system, with MindShare autonomy software layered into MARS and designed to coordinate distributed groups of crewed and uncrewed platforms. Airbus describes this stack as open, hardware-agnostic, and extensible across air, land, sea, and space assets, which means Germany is effectively Europeanizing a proven U.S. air vehicle rather than buying a black-box American autonomy package.

That distinction is what makes the aircraft strategically relevant to Berlin. A sovereign mission system means the Luftwaffe can own the mission data, integration path, upgrade rhythm, and future payload roadmap inside a European framework. Airbus’s broader collaborative-combat architecture adds another layer: it pairs MindShare mission autonomy with MARS onboard computing and Crossbond secure connectivity, the latter now being tested on the A330 MRTT as a communications hub. On the fighter side, Airbus and Rafael are upgrading the Litening 5 pod for the Eurofighter with added connectivity so the jet can act as a command aircraft. Industry reporting on the pod indicates a sensor mix built around electro-optical and infrared channels, automatic target-recognition functions, and real-time datalink capacity, giving the Eurofighter a practical bridge into manned-unmanned command and target-sharing rather than leaving the drone as a disconnected sidecar.

Operationally, that opens a wide tactical menu even though Airbus has not yet disclosed the first German mission set. The company’s own material says MindShare supports persistent surveillance, SEAD, and DEAD, collaborative attack, precision strike, communications relay, and logistics support, while Airbus’ 2024 Wingman concept defined the German requirement as ranging from reconnaissance and jamming to striking air and ground targets with precision-guided munitions or missiles. For Valkyrie itself, the internal bay and wing stations mean the aircraft can be configured for kinetic stores, non-kinetic payloads, or smaller adjunct systems, with the internal bay preserving survivability and the wing stations increasing magazine depth. The most plausible near-term role, and this is an inference from the published integration path, is as a Eurofighter-controlled escort and strike multiplier for suppression, deception, relay, and expendable first-day penetration tasks that would be politically and operationally harder to assign to a crewed fighter alone.

Industrial logic is just as important as combat logic here. Kratos brings a mature low-cost air vehicle already in production and already exercised in U.S. manned-unmanned teaming, while Airbus brings European missionization, sovereign software, platform integration, and the path into Luftwaffe operations. The result is a transatlantic division of labor that strengthens NATO interoperability while still addressing Europe’s demand for autonomy over code, data, and upgrade authority. In practical terms, the German Valkyrie is not the final FCAS answer, and it is not a direct substitute for a future clean-sheet European Wingman. It is a bridge capability, but a strategically shrewd one: field something real by 2029, learn at operational tempo, wire Eurofighter into collaborative combat, and create leverage in case Europe’s next-generation fighter timetable slips further. For Germany, that may prove more valuable than waiting for perfection.