Anduril Industries has introduced Thunder, an autonomous military aircraft designed to fly alongside crewed helicopters and extend their reach on increasingly dangerous battlefields. Thunder is intended to shoulder part of that burden by carrying weapons, sensors or supplies while operating as an autonomous teammate instead of another crewed aircraft. Flexible payload options Instead of dedicating Thunder to a single role, Anduril built the aircraft around interchangeable payload bays. The company estimates that pairing three Thunder aircraft with each AH-64 Apache would triple the brigade’s available munitions without adding more pilots to contested airspace. Thunder operates using Anduril’s Lattice mission autonomy software, which lets pilots assign objectives instead of remotely flying each aircraft.