The Air Force got a glimpse into the future this week as an F-15EX Eagle II fighter flew alongside an uncrewed Collaborative Combat Aircraft during a major Pacific exercise.
Pacific Air Forces announced the historic flight in a July 1 social media post, saying the flight over the Philippine Sea during exercise Valiant Shield 26 demonstrated “the future of human-machine teaming in the theater.”
The F-15EX is in the region visiting Kadena Air Base, Japan, to help personnel prepare for EXs to be permanently based there in the coming years. The CCA is Boeing’s MQ-28 Ghost Bat, which is participating in Valiant Shield to help Airmen practice how they will operate manned fighters with semi-autonomous drones in future combat operations.
The F-15EX and CCA are both expected to be cornerstones of the Air Force’s future combat fleet. But the CCAs the Air Force has committed to buying are General Atomics’ FQ-42 and Anduril’s FQ-44.
The EX, a heavily upgraded version of the fourth-generation F-15, is envisioned as a complement to the penetrating stealth of the F-22, F-35, and F-47, capable of carrying more ordnance and serving as a “missile truck.” The Air Force just recently doubled its planned fleet size, from 129 aircraft to 267 total.
CCAs, meanwhile, are meant to expand the Air Force’s “combat mass” at a lower cost while reducing risk to the human pilots at the center of their formations. The first versions will carry air-to-air weapons, but subsequent ones could be used for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, electronic attack, or more.
This is the first time the Air Force has published imagery of a CCA flying alongside a manned fighter, though the service and industry have conducted tests pairing them in the past. In October, an F-22 pilot controlled an MQ-20 “CCA surrogate” drone from from the fighter’s cockpit during a test in Nevada. And in May, an F-35 pilot controlled an MQ-20 from his cockpit on the ground. No previous tests with the F-15EX have been announced.
It’s unclear if the F-15EX pilot was controlling the MQ-28 in the Valiant Shield flight. A PACAF spokesperson previously told Air & Space Forces Magazine that the command will not discuss “specific flight operations or tactical integration details.”