The Air Force only expects to field about 100 Collaborative Combat Aircraft during the next five years, but that the tempo of the program will yield new contracts about every two years, Secretary Frank Kendall said.
While none of the major aircraft contractors were selected to develop the Collaborative Combat Aircraft, all three say they are seeking further autonomous aircraft work for the Navy, foreign partners, or in the classified arena, and maybe future versions of the CCA itself.
Anduril and General Atomics will develop their Collaborative Combat Aircraft for the Air Force, beating out Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, the service announced on April 24. But any of the non-selected companies can compete to actually manufacture the eventual design, the Air Force ...
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 ...
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 ...
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.
The acting official in charge of shaping the future Air Force revealed new details about the service’s plans for its fleet of unmanned wingmen Nov. 15, including the prospect that some of the drones may be aerially refueled to increase their range. The service is ...
There was a secret, multi-agency X-plane program to explore future fighters that paved the way for the Next-Generation Air Dominance program, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall revealed at the POLITICO Defense Summit on Nov. 14.
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 ...