Even as the Air Force prepares to award more contracts for Collaborative Combat Aircraft in the coming months and field them in the next few years, the service is still considering how its Airmen will interact with and operate the unmanned “wingman” drones, the head of ...
CCAs
An autonomously-piloted F-16 will fly this year with Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall on board, giving the service’s top civilian an up-close look at a critical effort for the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program.
Three F-16 fighters landed at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., on April 1. Soon enough, they'll be modified and flying again to test autonomous technologies key to Collaborative Combat Aircraft and other key programs, the Air Force said April 2.
The Air Force has long embraced remotely piloted aircraft (RPA or drones) for over-the-horizon ISR and one-off strike missions and over two decades has come to see them as central in that role, General Atomics executive David Alexander said at a Hudson Institute event. But, ...
Specific numbers of certain aircraft types will be less important to the Air Force’s future fighter force structure than a focus on manned-unmanned teaming driven by Collaborative Combat Aircraft, Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin said March 7. Indeed, Allvin suggested at the annual McAleese Defense ...
The Air Force is close to awarding at least two and maybe three contracts for the first increment of the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program, Secretary Frank Kendall said. The first deals for Increment 2, despite being still in its early stages, is expected to be ...
Wargames run by the Mitchell Institute show that moderately-priced and moderately-capable autonomous aircraft would be a huge benefit to the Air Force in a Pacific fight, imposing costs on an adversary, and enhancing the effectiveness of crewed combat aircraft.
The Air Force has awarded contracts to five companies for its Collaborative Combat Aircraft program to design and build unmanned, autonomous aircraft to fly alongside manned platforms, a spokesperson confirmed to Air & Space Forces Magazine: Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Anduril, and General Atomics.
Lawmakers want very tight oversight of the Next Generation Air Dominance fighters and Collaborative Combat Aircraft drones, demanding detailed six-month updates on their progress across a myriad of component categories, according to the 2024 compromise National Defense Authorization Act.
Kendall has posited a force of at least 1,000 CCAs, with the first ones ready for duty within the next six years. That timeline demands a robust and fast-paced test program.
Testing Collaborative Combat Aircraft—the unmanned, autonomous aircraft that will fly alongside crewed fighters with the goal of beefing up the future Air Force fleet—will require an unprecedented integration of effort from engineers and operators, leaders of the service’s test enterprise said in a recent interview ...
The Air Force wants to keep the competition for its Collaborative Combat Aircraft program open for as long as possible but will eventually choose a contractor to integrate the air vehicle, autonomy, and mission systems of the $5.8 billion program.
