USAF is rushing NGAD's drone fighter jets into service
Summary
Key points:
1. The Air Force plans to procure 200 NGAD fighters and 1,000 CCAs, with each CCA costing about a quarter to a third of an F-35.
2. CCAs will have a modular design, with some configured for weaponry and others for additional systems.
3. The program aims to deliver CCAs at a speed, cost, and scale to counter the pacing threat.
4. Anduril and General Atomics will build production-representative CCA vehicles and conduct test flights, while Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman will remain part of the broader industry partner vendor pool for future efforts.
5. The Air Force is on track to make a competitive production decision for the first increment of CCA in fiscal year 2026 and field a fully operational capability before the end of the decade.
6. Planning for CCA Increment 2 development is ongoing, with initial activities starting later this year, and all current and potential future industry partners competing for this follow-on effort.
7. The Air Force is exploring international partnerships as part of the CCA program to provide affordable mass at scale and drive interoperability across international partnerships.
Transcript
The US is knee-deep in work on its sixth-generation fighter, the NGAD, or Next Generation Air Dominance project. While we wait for more info on the development of said plane, this video will cover perhaps an even more important aspect of the whole sixth-generation fighter jet idea: the loyal wingman fighter jet drones, or as the Pentagon likes to call them, collaborative combat aircraft (CCA). We'll analyze the Air Force's future drones and when they might start being fielded. We'll explore the recent US Air Force decision to down-select to two companies for the first generation of its drones, with neither company being Northrop, Boeing, nor Lockheed. Air combat drones are rushing ahead, coming into service sooner than you think. Unmanned wingman jets are poised to drastically change future air warfare.
Stealth was the defining feature of the fifth-generation fighter jets. For sixth-generation fighters, the next buzzword requirement seems to be integration of loyal wingman drones to fighter jets. Right now, the US Air Force fighter jet program, the NGAD, is shaping up to be very expensive. In the words of Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, it will cost multiple hundreds of millions of dollars per plane. Kendall also said, "The Air Force has a nominal quantity of collaborative combat aircraft for planning purposes. The planning assumption is 1,000 CCAs. This figure was derived from an assumed two CCAs for each of the 200 NGAD platforms and an additional two for each of 300 F-35s, for a total of 1,000." That was said back in March 2023, so the sixth-generation fighter is seemingly not going to be that plentiful. For comparison, only 187 F-22s were ever made. The F-35 is going to be more plentiful; the US inventory is probably around 700 planes right now, but the ultimate goal of 2,400 to be procured is still looking possible. Also, the figure of 1,000 CCAs is preliminary. Kendall himself said the actual final figure could be twice as many, but such decisions won't be made for years and may keep changing with the changes in geopolitics.
Before we go on to answer an important question: What is a CCA? A CCA is an unmanned fighter jet. It has a jet engine, wings, and it carries fuel. Some designs may have some stealth features and may carry some weapons inside to maintain stealth. It also has sensors which, like the weapons, can be swapped out between missions. Basically, several CCAs can fly alongside manned fighter jets, but not all would be the same. Some would work as sensor nodes, others would carry weapons, and some may act as radar jammers. That description is fairly vague, but it draws upon existing quotes from Pentagon officials. It's very likely the route the Air Force will follow. Also, much is being invested in autonomy, the AI brain of the drone, but that can only go so far. It seems no one is confident enough in current and near-future AI capabilities to simply cut out the NGAD manned fighter. The AI inside the drones may be good, but it seems it will mostly deal with quick reactions and operational interpretations of tactical decisions coming from the controlling planes. Basically, the AI is expected to be good enough to try to evade enemy missiles on its own, good enough to fly from point A to point B while evading collisions and minimizing its exposure to the enemy, good enough to prioritize its sensors, and maybe even to fire weapons in self-defense, but not good enough to go far out into enemy territory to search for targets on its own, to identify targets, and to decide whether to engage them, how to engage them, and so on. All that may change in the coming decades, but for now, the Air Force seems to be playing it safe with incremental development of its CCAs.
So that's why control is important, but why do it from nearby fighters and not from far away? Drones like the Reaper and such are usually controlled by a satellite, which means the input signal travels quite a bit around the Earth then back to get feedback. That takes roughly a second, which may not seem like a lot, but in combat, that can be an eternity. An additional issue is that such communication involves wide beams, which means it's fairly detectable and can be more easily jammed. A US DOD explored narrower beam satellite comms, but those too still resulted in 600-meter radius spots. Against a peer opponent, such wide spots can still be exploited. So what the Air Force needs is a way to communicate using very narrow beams, which are inherently harder to detect and thus harder to interfere with, and it needs the latency to be almost non-existent, meaning the actual control input happens fairly close to the drone. While communication signals coming from above, from satellites, can be safer from jamming than ones coming from roughly the same altitude as the CCA is at, proximity to the CCA can also help protect the signal, as signal wavelength over very short distances can be such that it's harder to pick up by the enemy. All that points to a need to fly the plane issuing commands to the CCA right at the combat zone. So not 300 miles away in some sort of AWACS-like command center, but more like 50 miles away, which means such control aircraft are bound to get shot at as well. It can't be a big AWACS-like plane; it needs to be a proper combat plane to survive. Hence the NGAD fighter being the platform which will issue commands.
Now, how often will those CCAs need input? Well, said info isn't available, but it's curious that even F-35s were mentioned as being able to control CCAs. F-35s famously do not come in two-seater versions, so a single pilot will both have to pilot their own plane, manage their own systems, and manage two or more CCAs. This April, Kendall said 2 to 5 CCAs may be acquired for every fighter. That doesn't necessarily mean so many would be flown in missions, but it does point towards future plans and needs. Kendall also said the Air Force doesn't plan to have CCAs for every single fighter, at least not initially, which also points towards future plans. Kendall did at times mention that more CCAs could be coupled with every manned fighter. Major General Scott Jobe, Director of Force Design Integration and Wargaming, said they tested former pilots in F-22 simulators, and they were comfortably managing up to six CCAs.
The Collaborative Combat Aircraft competition is quite new. Officially, five contender companies were awarded development contracts early this year, but the competition was announced in 2022, back when the CCA program was a black program shrouded in secrecy. Who knows how many years it was developed before that? Certainly, loyal wingman concepts were at times mentioned even two decades earlier. That being said, official contracting is done at a breakneck pace, signaling the Air Force's urgency. The really interesting bit is this: In January 2024, the US Air Force awarded contracts to Boeing, General Atomics, Lockheed Martin, Anduril, and Northrop Grumman. Three out of five are big names, big players who make all the US combat jets. One, General Atomics, is a known drone maker which makes the Reaper drone, for example, but it doesn't make fighter jets. And one, Anduril, is a very new company founded in 2017, with little experience. Then in April, mere months later, a down-select happened, and the US Air Force eliminated all but two companies. The companies still in the game: General Atomics and Anduril. Not a single one of the big players remains in the competition. That's really unprecedented in a way, but it also suggests where the Air Force's priorities lie, and it may help us understand what sort of CCA the US is going for.
It also has to be said that CCA is a continuous development effort for the Air Force. The contracts that General Atomics and Anduril got are for Increment 1 effort. The goal of Increment 1 is to test the whole idea, not just if the plane works, but if many planes can be built quickly. The idea behind many recent programs, not just CCAs but missile production, various other drones, is to quickly ramp up production and have hundreds of aircraft made per year if needed. The incremental development idea is also not very new. At first, even the whole NGAD plane was supposed to be done via incremental design improvements. That seems to have not worked out; a big sixth-generation plane is not a design that can be redone every several years. But with missiles and CCAs, that's still being attempted. So Increment 1 is not going to be very demanding. It's going to have some autonomy, but not too much. Air Force Acquisition Executive Andrew Hunter said autonomy is the hardest part of CCAs, and that Increment 1 will have a useful degree of autonomy, though not as much as originally thought. Hunter added that later increments will have greater autonomy, but that the focus of Increment 1 is achieving the quickest route to mass production. That is why Anduril and General Atomics beat the others.
Increment 1 is also not going to be big. It may not have a lot of range or carry lots of weapons, and it seems it will be subsonic. The winning design decision is planned for 2026, but Air Force Secretary Kendall said the Air Force might decide to build two separate designs from both contenders, if it can afford to do so. Kendall added that increments are planned to be done 2 years apart. Increment 1 is meant to go into production quickly, within a few years, and that first deliveries will happen within five or so years. Specifically, the in-service date for Increment 1 is planned for 2028. CCAs will have a common airframe and modular mission equipment, all optimized against an expected threat set. Kendall further explained that mission payloads will be swappable depending on mission requirements. He also said that fielding CCAs will not come at the expense of manned fighters, but that CCAs will enable them to be more capable. CCAs will be independent platforms carrying weapons and sensors. What that means is that the Air Force will deploy more missiles and more sensors in the same airspace at the same time, compared to today's capabilities.
While previously $40 million per CCA was the expected unit cost, lately different figures were mentioned. Kendall said CCA cost will top out at $25 to $30 million. That's the upper range. Earlier, Kendall mentioned that the lower range could be just 1/4 of the F-35's cost, meaning $20 million. Some 100 CCAs are currently planned to be built by 2029, ramping up to a thousand should happen at a greater pace, possibly by the mid-2030s. Interestingly, Air Force officials said that the Air Force started off with expecting an exquisite, high-end, stealthy platform. But then wargame simulations were done, and the service went back to the drawing board. The results of the simulations showed that in the Pacific, a large number of cheaper CCAs were more valuable than a small number of high-end drones. Indeed, at one time, the Air Force had suggested CCAs might cost half the F-35's price, $40 million, but those cost figures have since dropped, possibly after those wargames.
Two designs have been chosen, as said. One is based on General Atomics' XQ-67A. That aircraft had its first test flight only this February. General Atomics President David Alexander said that aircraft is largely the same as the design submitted for the CCA Increment 1. It shares the same structure, though there has been a slight change to the wing slope. Alexander, perhaps bravely, said the following: "This is in our wheelhouse. We are the best in the world at it." He also said his company's design should be better than the Air Force's requirement, and that General Atomics can improve upon the Air Force's schedule requirements, delivering aircraft in perhaps half the time of the requirement. Now, the final design may change a little during development, but considering the aggressive development timetable, it's likely we will indeed see drones very similar to the proposed prototypes.
The XQ-67 looks to be fairly compact. Dimensions weren't disclosed, but sizing the plane to the runway at Palmdale Airfield where it was tested, roughly 44 ft looks plausible for its wingspan, 33 to 34 ft looks like a plausible length minus the nose pitot tube. Those dimensions may seem as if they're not that much smaller than an F-16 or F-35, but weight-wise, it's a whole different class of a plane. The F-35 doesn't look a lot bigger than the F-16, but it is; it is over 40% heavier. Comparing the XQ-67 with other small aircraft and interpolating its weight, one might get an empty weight of some 2 tons, give or take, meaning six times lighter than an F-35. Things like speed, range, payload, and such are much harder to estimate, but for supersonic speeds, the plane's wings would look different. Plus, the competitor Anduril's design was officially cited to be subsonic. It's thus extremely likely General Atomics' design is subsonic as well.
Again, one can use Kratos Valkyrie figures to get some semblance of performance. So besides a Mach 0.9 speed and decent 45,000 ft ceiling, which are within the average cruise speed and ceiling of fighter jets, one thing that does stand out is range. If the General Atomics design is anything close to the 3,000 nautical miles of the Kratos Valkyrie, it will be quite a long-legged drone. That's a little over 3,400 miles, and almost surely refers to ferry range. The F-16, for example, tops out at 2,400 miles. The F-35's ferry range is unknown, but it could plausibly be around 2,000 miles. Then again, range could be closer to Boeing's Ghost Bat jet drone, which is credited with 2,300 miles. Given the size, it's plausible General Atomics' offering might have more room than its competitor, perhaps enough for three or four AMRAAM-size missiles, or for two compact air-to-ground missiles, perhaps like the SiAW.
The other competitor, Anduril, is fascinating and has an interesting approach to the drone, which seems to have piqued the Air Force's interest. Anduril is a very young company, seen as a disruptor to the established military-industrial complex companies. Its founders are of SpaceX and Palantir heritage. SpaceX already disrupted the established space launch businesses, while Palantir is a new player in the new field of big data analytics, which can be crucial in AI development. In a span of just a few years, Anduril managed to secure contracts with the Pentagon for surveillance projects, software, and drones like the small Altius and Anvil drones, as well as a very novel Roadrunner drone-like SAM missile. It seems to specialize in very low-cost drones. Anduril also has an AI-related contract with the Pentagon, the Project Maven, which deals with battlefield target recognition. Anduril seems well-connected in the Pentagon to be able to do all that so quickly. But crucially, now it entered the CCA game out of nowhere.
In September 2023, Anduril bought Blue Force Technologies, a smaller company which had made a cheap adversary training drone, Fury. Such drones help simulate opponents in real-world training flights on the cheap. So Anduril, lacking expertise and time to make such a drone from scratch, bought Fury, retained the name, and retooled the project to serve as not only an adversary training drone but also as a CCA. Anduril executive Palmer Luckey said they're bringing Anduril's work on autonomy and communications to the Fury.
Given the tight deadlines, it's improbable large changes are being done to the shape and size of the Fury. Back when it was just an adversary aircraft, it was described as a 17 ft by 20 ft plane, a Mach 0.95 plane able to do 9G instantaneous turns. It's possible that the plan is not to have Anduril's Fury carry internal weapons at all, but to have it fire its AMRAAMs from rail launchers under its wings. The bottom line is, Fury seems to be a low-cost and low-capability counterpart to General Atomics' design. Its stealth shaping is minimal, which makes sense coupled with external missile carriage. It's a visibly smaller plane, and two AMRAAMs per drone seem plausible. Another drone design similar to Fury from Blue Force did feature four AMRAAMs and a different tail section. Who knows what design Anduril will ultimately choose? Anduril's CCA seems to be aiming for an even lower bar than General Atomics, but that may be exactly what the Air Force is also exploring.
Remember when we said the Air Force is pondering giving contracts to both competitors? It implies the Air Force wants to see how both concepts would work in the real world. Ideally, it already has wargaming simulations suggesting cheap and plentiful drones are the way to go. So it may come down to money available. Anduril's CCA may be more easily produced in large numbers quickly. General Atomics' drone may be a bit less numerous, but we're still talking about cheap aircraft for now. Stealth is not part of the CCA equation much, for future increment CCAs, who knows?
The Air Force said that any company, even the ones who lost the Increment 1 competition, can re-compete for Increment 2 on their own dime, which may be problematic.
Air Force Picks Anduril And General Atomics To Build And Test Collaborative Combat Aircraft
The U.S. Air Force has awarded the two companies the funding for detailed designs, manufacture, and testing of production representative test articles under the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program.
The Air Force made the decision to continue funding Anduril and General Atomics for the next phase of the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program, the Department of the AF announced on Apr. 24, 2024.
The two companies will now build production-representative CCA vehicles, and test-flight them, whereas Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, that also competed in the program, but were not selected, will continue to be part of the broader industry partner vendor pool consisting of more than 20 companies to compete for future efforts, including future production contracts.
Here’s a public statement released by the Department of the Air Force:
“Just over two years ago, we announced our intent, as part of our Operational Imperatives, to pursue collaborative combat aircraft. Now, following the enactment of the fiscal year 2024 budget, we’re exercising option awards to two companies to construct production representative test articles. The progress we’ve made is a testament to the invaluable collaboration with industry, whose investment alongside the Air Force has propelled this initiative forward. It’s truly encouraging to witness the rapid execution of this program,” said Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall.
“We executed an acquisition and funding strategy for CCA with early operator, technologist, acquirer, and industry teaming to quickly iterate requirements given our fielding timelines. Continuous competition is a cornerstone at every stage of this program. The transparency and teamwork between industry and government really accelerated how quickly we could mature the CCA program,” Kendall said.
“As we navigate the next phase of CCA development, our collaboration with both current and potential industry partners remains pivotal. Their expertise, innovation, and resources are instrumental in driving this initiative forward, ensuring its success and impact on future operations,” said Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Andrew Hunter.
The DAF is on track to make a competitive production decision for the first increment of CCA in fiscal year 2026 and field a fully operational capability before the end of the decade. The DAF’s option exercise decision does not exclude any of the vendors from competing for the future Increment 1 production contract.
The DAF is exploring international partnerships, to include potential Foreign Military Sales, as part of the CCA program. These partnerships will help provide further affordable mass at scale while driving horizontal integration and interoperability across our international partnerships.
Planning for CCA Increment 2 development is also ongoing, with initial activities starting later this year. All current and potential future industry partners from the CCA vendor pool will compete for this follow-on effort.
The CCA program aims to deliver at least 1,000 CCAs, prioritizing cost-effective scalability. With air superiority pivotal to America’s military dominance for more than 70 years, CCA offers expanded fighter capacity (affordable mass) at reduced costs and adaptable timelines.
The CCA program
The CCA program aims to develop autonomous unmanned aircraft that will cooperate in the “loyal wingman” role with fifth- and sixth-generation combat aircraft as part of manned-unmanned teaming concepts. The U.S. Air Force wants to procure 200 NGAD fighters along with 1,000 CCA that will cooperate in the “loyal wingman” role with the sixth-generation combat aircraft. While each NGAD aircraft is expected to hundreds of millions of dollars, the CCA are designed to cost “in the order of a quarter or a third” of the current unit cost of an F-35.
The anticipated CCA’s price is between $20.6 million and $27.5 million. This is less than the price of a MQ-9 Reaper, which costs roughly $32 million. Even if the cost is “small”, the CCA are not considered expendable or attritable, but rather “systems that you can accept losses of a fraction of them and not have a big operational impact”.
The Air Force is currently refining the specifications for the CCA program, particularly regarding the range and payload, to align with the operational needs of drones supporting crewed fighters. It’s established that CCAs will have a modular design, with some configured for weaponry and others for additional systems.
The potential involvement of international partners, like Australia and Japan, in the Increment 2 is still possible as confirmed by the DAF statement, although details remain limited.
Increment 2 will introduce a new design, potentially a more advanced asset, with requirements distinct from the initial phase. While the focus for Increment 1 is swift production, subsequent increments will emphasize increased autonomy and expanded capabilities, according to Air Force Service Acquisition Executive Andrew Hunter.
The reactions of the two selected companies
“There is no time to waste on business as usual. With the CCA program, Secretary Kendall and the Air Force have embraced a fast-moving, forward-looking approach to field autonomous systems at speed and scale,” said Brian Schimpf, Anduril’s CEO and Co-Founder in a statement released by the company. “We are honored to be selected for this unprecedented opportunity, which signals a demand for continued expansion of the defense industrial base. Anduril is proud to pave the way for other non-traditional defense companies to compete and deliver on large scale programs.”
“Anduril’s work on this program is just beginning,” said Jason Levin, Senior Vice President of Anduril’s Air Dominance & Strike Division. “U.S. and allied success in the future requires CCAs to be delivered at a speed, cost, and scale to beat the pacing threat. We look forward to continuing our partnership with the U.S. Air Force to deliver this critical capability to our Airmen as quickly as possible.”
The @usairforce has selected Anduril to design, manufacture, and test production-representative Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA).
In this era of great power competition, there is no time to waste on business as usual. We look forward to delivering CCAs on schedule, within… pic.twitter.com/EMz8b9LkcY
— Anduril Industries (@anduriltech) April 24, 2024
“The CCA program redefines the future of aviation and will shape the USAF acquisition model to deliver affordable combat mass to the warfighter at the speed of relevancy,” said Mike Atwood, Vice President of Advanced Programs for GA-ASI.
“Throughout our 30-year history, GA-ASI has been at the forefront of rapidly advancing unmanned aircraft systems that support our warfighters,” said GA-ASI President David R. Alexander following the announcement. “The USAF is moving forward with GA-ASI due to our focused commitment to unmanned air-to-air combat operations and unmatched UAS experience, ensuring the production of the CCA aircraft at scale to deliver affordable combat mass for the warfighter.”
GA-ASI has been selected to build production representative flight test articles of the Collaborative Combat Aircraft for the @usairforce Life Cycle Management Center’s Advanced Aircraft Division.
The CCA program aims to be a force multiplier, developing a low-cost, modular,… pic.twitter.com/0JGUIIuCRI
— GA-ASI (@GenAtomics_ASI) April 24, 2024
General Atomics said that in February 2024, GA-ASI achieved a significant milestone by conducting the inaugural flight of the XQ-67A CCA prototype aircraft. “This successful flight validated the innovative “genus/species” concept introduced by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) within the framework of the Low-Cost Attritable Aircraft Platform Sharing (LCAAPS) initiative. Under this program, multiple aircraft variants are developed using a common core chassis. Subsequent to its maiden flight, the CCA prototype has undergone two additional successful test flights, marking a promising start to the production and flight testing phase. GA-ASI’s design for CCA production is derived from the XQ-67A Off-Board Sensing Station, an earlier development by GA-ASI in collaboration with the AFRL.”
The company added: “In addition to the CCA contract, GA-ASI plans to carry out a sequence of autonomy and mission system evaluations on the MQ-20 Avenger UAS and XQ-67A. This initiative aims to expedite the deployment of operational autonomy. These live flight assessments will further showcase the capability of the complete mission system to facilitate the advancement of the U.S. Air Force Autonomous Collaborative Platforms (ACP).”
David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.
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