https://crsreports.congress.gov
August 15, 2024
U.S. Air Force Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA)
What Are Collaborative Combat
Aircraft (CCA)?
The U.S. Air Force is developing a new type of
semiautonomous, uncrewed aircraft (UAV) called
Collaborative Combat Aircraft. The Air Force contends that
CCA is being created as a so-called “loyal wingman,” a
large UAV that could fly alongside new and existing
crewed fighter jets. The Air Force describes CCAs,
powered by jet engines, as potentially able to fly alone or in
small groups, and potentially equipped for a variety of
missions, including air-to-air combat; air-to-ground combat;
electronic warfare; targeting; and intelligence, surveillance,
and reconnaissance. The Air Force says CCAs’ AI-driven
software would enable collaboration with, and take
direction from, human pilots and would serve to expand the
fighter fleet and protect human pilots at a lower cost than
current fighter jets. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall
stated that there is a “planning assumption” of 1,000 CCAs,
a number derived by projecting the use of two CCAs for
each of 500 advanced fighters.
CCAs are part of the service’s Next-Generation Air
Dominance (NGAD) family of systems, which also may
include a future crewed fighter platform, sensors, weapons,
and more. The U.S. Air Force requested $557.1 million in
its FY2025 research, development, test, and evaluation
(RDT&E) budget request for CCAs. Congress may
approve, reject, modify, or choose not to act on the request.
Changing Concept of Operations
Aircraft are expensive to develop, buy, and operate. Since
the 1990s, the U.S. Air Force’s fleet has decreased, in part
because of those costs. Kendall has stated CCAs would cost
roughly one-third the price of crewed fighters. Service
officials also indicate that training on CCAs would occur
virtually, so the airframes themselves would fly less,
potentially leading to lower maintenance and sustainment
costs. The Air Force could therefore potentially purchase
them in quantities large enough to buttress its fleet.
China’s use of anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities,
such as long-range missiles and sophisticated air defense
systems, has challenged the U.S. Air Force’s ability to
achieve air superiority (i.e., the ability to control a certain
air space to conduct operations without interference from
air and missile threats). A larger fleet that includes CCAs
and crewed fighters could potentially help the Air Force to
gain air superiority.
The Air Force is also pursuing a concept of operations—
similar to those being implemented by other military
services—called agile combat employment (ACE). Under
the ACE concept, operations shift from large, centralized
physical infrastructures to a network of dispersed locations.
CCAs in those dispersed locations could help the U.S. Air
Force add sensors and weapons to its combat aircraft fleet.
According to Commander of Air Combat Command
General Kenneth S. Wilsbach, additional aircraft could
cause confusion for enemy aircraft and assist the fight for
air superiority. “You can create mass, and so many targets
out in the battlespace that your adversary will have to worry
about, and wonder, is that something that I have to use
some munitions on,” Wilsbach said in 2023, when he was
Commander of Pacific Air Forces.
Initial Research and Development
The Air Force and Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL)
has conducted numerous efforts to develop and test
autonomy, software, and modular upgradable platforms
during the past decade. The Air Force has sought to develop
a pipeline of technologies feeding into CCA, because the
integration and employment of autonomous systems in
flight is relatively new.
Those efforts include a project to refine underlying
technologies such as digital engineering, agile software, and
open mission systems. Another project put AI to the test in
three converted F-16 aircraft. The project collected data and
conducted artificial intelligence experiments to help teach
pilots how autonomous software behaves and reduce risk
for CCA. For yet another AFRL project, the service sought
to demonstrate rapid development of a low-cost aircraft
with an open software architecture. General Atomics
Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI) participated by designing,
building, testing, and flying the experimental XQ-67A
aircraft, which formed the basis for the company’s CCA
bid.
CCA Acquisition Strategy
As noted, Secretary Kendall stated that the Air Force is
using a “planning assumption” of 1,000 CCAs when
analyzing “basic organizational structures, training and
range requirements, and sustainment concepts.” In January
2024, the service awarded initial contracts to five
companies to design and build CCAs: Anduril, Boeing,
GA-ASI, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman. In
April, the Air Force announced that two of those
companies—Anduril and GA-ASI—won contracts to build
production-representative test articles. According to a press
release announcing the contracts, 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.”
Kendall told Members of Congress that the Air Force
anticipates ordering more than 100 CCAs for Increment 1
in the next five years.
