Defense News February 13. 2024
Air Force plans to award contracts for the next round of Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCAs) — drones loaded with autonomous software that would fly themselves into battle alongside crewed fighters — in fiscal 2025. On the first increment of CCAs, the Air Force has contracts with five companies: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Atomics and Anduril. The Air Force plans to field several different types of CCAs, with different capabilities and levels of survivability, to carry out a wide range of missions including strikes, surveillance, jamming, and serving as decoys to draw enemy fire. The Air Force will next focus on moving CCAs into production and in the next few years will further down select the companies working on the first increment of CCAs… read more.
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A conceptual design of low-cost, attritable drones serving as wingmen for a crewed fighter jet. Credit: U.S. Air Force