We now have extra readability on the U.S. Air Pressure’s plans for its second tranche of Collaborative Fight Plane (CCA) drones, often known as Increment 2. This consists of the chance that every CCA Increment 2 drone will value lower than was beforehand anticipated, in addition to the growing chance of its integration with property along with fighters, together with the B-21 stealth bomber and E-7 airborne early warning and management (AEW&C) plane.
The data was offered by Maj. Gen. Joseph D. Kunkel, director of Pressure Design, Integration, and Wargaming, deputy chief of employees for Air Pressure Futures. Kunkel was talking at present on the Warfighters in Motion digital Q&A organized by the Air and Area Forces Affiliation.
Maj. Gen Joseph Kunkel, director of Pressure Design, Integration, and Wargaming, speaks on the Air and Area Forces Affiliation Warfare Symposium in Aurora, Colorado, on March 4, 2025. U.S. Air Pressure photograph by Workers Sgt. Adam R. Shanks SSgt Adam R. Shanks
Kunkel confirmed that the Air Pressure is presently trying extra deeply on the necessities for CCA Increment 2, noting that this contrasts with its method to Increment 1, which targeted on quickly bringing a functionality into service.
The Air Pressure expects to purchase between 100 and 150 Increment 1 CCAs, however has mentioned up to now that it may in the end purchase a minimum of a thousand CCA drones throughout the entire program’s increments. The service’s said preliminary focus is on buying CCAs that may act as weapons ‘vans,’ digital warfare platforms, and sensor nodes, to enhance crewed tactical fight jets, however there’s additionally important potential for drones that may fulfill roles extra to those.
“What we wished to do with CCA Increment 1 was velocity the sector,” Kunkel mentioned. “How rapidly can we area this? And so we’ve acquired a functionality that’s going to area in a short time. We’re flying the primary issues this summer time, which is completely unimaginable from a timeline perspective, as we proceed to do evaluation.”
The Air Pressure has chosen to construct two totally different drones for CCA Increment 1, that are being developed by Basic Atomics and Anduril because the YFQ-42A and YFQ-44A, respectively. These are the U.S. army’s first-ever ‘fighter drone’ designations. The Increment 1 CCAs are anticipated to work intently along with crewed fight jets, primarily within the air-to-air fight position, a minimum of initially.
Kunkel added that among the evaluation that’s now serving to body CCA Increment 2 necessities emerged from the Air Pressure’s research for its Subsequent Era Air Dominance (NGAD) ‘fighter’ initiative. The centerpiece of the NGAD effort is a brand new crewed sixth-generation stealth fight jet, the Boeing F-47, which the Air Pressure hopes to start fielding within the subsequent decade.
Primarily based on these findings, “We’re a spread of CCAs,” Kunkel continued. “I do know that as Secretary Kendall left, he mentioned, ‘Hey, it’s going to be dearer and it’s going to be extra beautiful.’ Nicely, it could be, however we’re additionally seeing that there’s going to be room for different capabilities that aren’t as beautiful.”
Kunkel was referencing the phrases of former Secretary of the Air Pressure Frank Kendall, who advised that the Increment 2 drones could possibly be between 20 to 30 p.c dearer per airframe than these within the first batch.
Kendall had beforehand mentioned that the aim was for the worth level for Increment 1 CCAs to be between one-quarter and one-third of that of an F-35. This may put the worth tag of a single a type of drones at between $20.5 and $27.5 million, primarily based on publicly accessible value information. A rise of 20-30 p.c in these figures would put the worth vary for Increment 2 CCAs at between roughly $24.6/$26.65 and $33/35.75 million.
On the identical time, Kendall did say he doesn’t consider the Increment 2 CCAs ought to evolve into high-end beautiful platforms. This got here amid critical questions in regards to the Air Pressure’s means to afford its subsequent spherical of CCAs, in addition to different future superior plane, together with new sixth-generation crewed fight jets and stealthy tankers.
“I believe, personally, one thing that has some enhance in value over Increment 1 wouldn’t be outrageous,” Kendall advised Air & Area Forces Journal earlier this 12 months, “20 or 30 p.c, one thing like that.”
Kunkel went additional on that theme, noting that the Increment 2 drones — or a minimum of a few of them — will very possible be cheaper, to “present mass.”
“This complete CCA factor began a very long time in the past,” Kunkel mirrored. “You had a bunch of child F-22 drivers sitting across the bar at Elmendorf going, ‘Man, I ran out of missiles 5 minutes into the battle. If solely I had this loyal wingman that wouldn’t discuss again to me however would additionally have the ability to simply shoot some missiles,’ and we dreamed about this loyal wingman. We didn’t name it CCA again then, however we’re now attending to the purpose the place we’re realizing it.”
As to what Increment 2 may seem like, Kunkel mentioned he expects to see “a spread of choices from low-end to probably extra beautiful. I are inclined to suppose that it’s in all probability going to be nearer to this low-end factor.”
We already know the Air Pressure is working to accumulate what may in the end be a fleet of a number of various kinds of CCA drones by iterative improvement cycles. Already, dozens of contractors are additionally engaged on different features of this system, together with superior autonomous applied sciences.
When the Air Pressure begins to take a look at additional CCA increments, Kunkel said that the service must study the way it can finest generate fight energy. Though “era of fight energy from bases is essential, there could be different methods to generate this fight energy that don’t depend on bases,” Kunkel mentioned. “In order that could be one thing that we could be as we begin future increments of CCA. That could be a huge portion of it. We’re not simply the way it fights within the air. We’re how we generate fight energy as effectively.”
Kunkel’s phrases recommend that the Air Pressure shall be choices to launch and recuperate CCA drones of future increments that don’t depend on conventional, weak runways and costly associated infrastructure. On the one hand, this might contain drones launched from a rail or catapult, nevertheless it may additionally embody scope for drones that may be launched from different plane.
Up to now, TWZ has highlighted up to now the worth of CCAs in a position to function from shorter and/or much less improved runways, and the advantages would solely enhance in the event that they had been to be made fully runway impartial, which might additionally enable them to be extra flexibly positioned in ahead areas.
Kunkel additionally offered some perception into how the CCAs (Increments 1, 2, and probably past) shall be operated at the side of crewed Air Pressure property, confirming that the service is integrating the drones with a spread of platforms.
The video beneath from Collins Aerospace presents one notional imaginative and prescient for the way CCAs may function along with crewed plane, a minimum of initially:
“The F-47 goes to be a type of platforms,” Kunkel mentioned. “What CCA does within the battle is twofold. One, it supplies reasonably priced mass. However the different factor it does is complicate the image for an adversary. And , as an air-to-air man, everyone knows that the simplest image is that this single-axis, single-azimuth image of the battle. Everybody’s coming proper at you, and it’s like, ‘Okay, hey, diddle diddle, up the center, we will take this on.’ What’s extra advanced and tougher to battle is that this multi-axis dense-threat surroundings, and with CCA, we’ve got the chance to do this. So CCA integration with F-47 makes the F-47 higher.”
In addition to a loyal wingman to the F-47, CCA drones shall be built-in with the F-35 and F-22 stealth fighters, Kunkel mentioned. Moreover, “I’d recommend probably sooner or later, B-21 and E-7, and possibly simply CCA by itself.”
All of those totally different choices “complicate the adversary image [and] put us in a greater place the place it makes the battle higher for all of us. So yeah, CCA integration with numerous platforms is one thing that we’re .”
Again in 2023, Lt. Gen. James Slife, the Air Pressure’s Deputy Chief of Workers for Operations, had additionally raised the concept of CCAs working alongside B-21s, in addition to aerial refueling tankers and cargo plane. In the meantime, the potential of CCAs to help the E-7 is one thing that has been mentioned for a while, with Basic Atomics, specifically, having pitched CCA-like drones in an asset-protection position for AEW&C platforms, tankers, and different crucial and extra weak plane.
At this stage, there are nonetheless many unknowns surrounding CCA Increment 2, though it’s clear that necessities are taking form. With the potential for CCAs to enhance crewed platforms past fighters, and with what seems to be more likely to be an emphasis on low value and fight mass, it’s additionally possible that the Air Pressure’s future CCA fleet may develop considerably bigger and embody a number of totally different designs.
That’s, if all goes to plan.
For all its undoubted potential, the CCA effort nonetheless has a lot to show, and it is a idea very a lot in its infancy. Whether or not the Air Pressure’s CCA ambitions will pan out as Kunkel or different officers envisage them stays to be seen.
Contact the writer: thomas@thewarzone.com