Anduril’s Fury hopes to woo Australia away from Boeing’s Ghost Bat
Anduril has held talks with other countries in the region, executive David Goodrich said in an interview, but Australia is clearly a prime target.
Full scale mockup of Anduril Industries’ Fury drone, appearing for the first time outside the United States at the 2025 Avalon Air Show. Credit- Colin Clark
AVALON AIR SHOW — Anduril is showcasing a model of its Fury drone at the Avalon Air Show this week, in what appears to be an attempt to woo Australia away from its focus on Boeing’s MQ-28 Ghost Bat Collaborative Combat Aircraft loyal wingman drone.
“It’s a capability that we would like to think would be of interest to the Australian CCA program in terms of what Fury can do,” Anduril Australia CEO David Goodrich said in an interview with Breaking Defense, pointing to interest by the Australian military.
“We have participated in a process that the Royal Australian Air Force has run. I probably can’t say much more than that. We’re waiting for some some feedback on that process. Obviously, it’s subject to government approvals. We’re not quite sure as to what the timetable for that is,” Goodrich said. “But it’s more than just conversations.”
In a statement sure to attract interest from the Australian government, the Anduril Australia executive said his company would be interested in building Fury in Australia should the CCA drone be purchased here.
The company has held talks with other countries in the Indo-Pacific theater, Goodrich said, though he declined to identify which nations the startup was talking to. One of them may be Singapore, given a March 20 announcement from Singapore’s Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA), the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) and Anduril that they have “established a partnership to explore advancements in mission autonomy for manned-unmanned teaming concepts.”
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Anduril clearly believes some customers outside of the Pacific are interested as well. Goodrich said the company will showcase Fury next at the Paris Air Show in June. The first flight for Fury is set for this year in the United States, where it is competing against General Atomics’ entrant in the CCA competition to fly with the Next Generation Air Dominance Fighter, the contract for which was just awarded to Boeing. With the contract award, NGAD is now known as the F-47.
The seeming target of Anduril’s marketing efforts is the Ghost Bat, a weapon designed by Boeing Australia specifically for the military. Australia has budgeted $600 million AUD ($377 million USD) for 10 Ghost Bats, while another $400 million AUD ($260 million USD) is allocated for three Block 2 upgraded Ghost Bats.
A regional defense expert at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), Malcolm Davis, said Fury’s debut in the Lucky Country — which developed Ghost Bat, a Boeing drone formerly known as the Loyal Wingman —- “certainly will put some heat on Boeing.”
Davis questioned “whether Boeing can produce MQ-28 Ghost Bat at a similar cost to what Anduril are suggesting for Fury — which I doubt.”
As a cost contrast, Fury’s airframe uses large amounts of commercial technology, combined with Anduril’s autonomy software, which is also largely commercial. For example, Fury uses a commercial jet engine, according to Anduril. Former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall estimated each CCA aircraft, would cost $25 million to $30 million.
When asked about Fury and and its impact on Ghost Bat, Boeing executive Steve Parker, who is interim CEO of the company’s defense, space and security unit, said a number of competitors are entering the market and noted that Ghost Bat has already flown 100 times, as opposed to challengers who are still in the early R&D phase.
Also seemingly unperturbed by Anduril’s showcasing Fury at Avalon is its chief rival for the US Air Force’s CCA program, General Atomics. GA spokesperson C. Mark Brinkley told Breaking Defense that the firm isn’t looking at Ghost Bat as a target, but instead is here trying to cast a larger, regional net for customers.
“I mean for CCA in Australia, if Ghost Bat meets their needs then it meets their needs,” Brinkley said.
However, he did claim that GA is capable of producing 200 or more aircraft each year without building any new facilities or hiring new employees, a not so veiled shot at Anduril’s relatively light footprint.
