While the Air Force said in February that it had picked nine companies initially for Increment 2 of the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program, more than 20 remain eligible for awards, as the service plans a down select before October between the General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. YFQ-42A Dark Merlin and the Anduril Industries YFQ-44A Fury for CCA Increment 1.
“The Air Force remains on track to make its final competitive production decision for CCA Increment 1 in fiscal year 2026,” the service said in an email response last week to questions from Defense Daily. “Additionally, the Air Force is moving forward on Increment 2. In early FY26, the Department of the Air Force began refining the concept for CCA Increment 2. While nine vendors were brought into the concept refinement phase, all 20+ industry partners in the vendor pool will have the opportunity to compete for the next design phase.”
The fiscal 2027 Air Force budget requests $1.1 billion to begin CCA production, but the service has declined to provide numbers on how many CCAs that funding would buy (Defense Daily, Apr. 21). In addition, the Air Force fiscal 2027 budget would fund CCA research and development at nearly $1.4 billion.
The service has estimated fielding the first 100 to 150 CCAs by 2029 out of a total buy of 1,000 to 2,000, yet that goal may increase significantly.
The Northrop Grumman [NOC] YFQ-48A Talon Blue is the third CCA prototype to gain an Air Force designation and is a likely competitor in Increment 2.
The Air Force has not identified the nine vendors it has previously said are vying for Increment 2. Flights by Nellis AFB, Nevada’s Experimental Operations Unit (EOU) for CCA are to lead to requirements for the second increment (Defense Daily, Feb. 26).
In April, one retired fighter pilot called CCA “the defense aviation fixation of the decade” and said that CCA’s advanced autonomy, protected communications, digital architecture, and unique logistics would increase the cost of the drone family significantly and make it less attractive as an alternative or supplement for manned fighters, in addition to the drawbacks of CCA’s “limited range, endurance and payload” (Defense Daily, April 22).
Asked how the Air Force plans to overcome CCA range, endurance, and payload constraints in order to operate over the vast expanse of the Indo-Pacific, the service replied that it “is developing CCA to be highly adaptable, cost-effective, and rapidly deployable.”
“By utilizing government reference architectures and investing in next-generation propulsion, the Air Force can optimize aircraft systems to meet diverse mission requirements,” the Air Force said. “Additionally, CCA are built for Agile Combat Employment—featuring simplified maintenance and a ‘fly-ready’ status—which minimizes the need for traditional logistics and enables sustained operations from distributed locations.”
Two years ago, the Air Force said “exquisite” CCAs could have a flyaway cost between $25 million and $30 million, but the service forecast a possible move toward a CCA mix with more attritable systems around a price of $5 million to $10 million per copy (Defense Daily, Feb. 15, 2024). At the high end unit cost of $30 million that may be appropriate for early stage CCAs bought with fiscal 2027 dollars, the Air Force would be able to buy about 36 CCAs.
Now, the service is determining how many total CCAs it wants and looking again at unit cost goals for the drones this summer and possibly into the fall, as Air Force officials examine what CCAs will be able to do in lieu of manned aircraft. CCAs are to field initially for the air-to-air mission but are likely to take on other duties.
Last week, Air Force Secretary Troy Meink suggested that CCAs would not be in the attritable cost category (Defense Daily, June 9).
The CCA prototypes are “on schedule–they are sticking to their budget targets, and the performance is in many ways better than what we expected,” Meink told the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense panel.
“With respect to keeping that cost down going forward, we have competition and open standards that allow us to bring in several contractors for different pieces of the hardware and bring on additional contractors–from the avionics, to the aircraft bodies and engines,” he said. “We’re trying to make sure we have a modular open structure which will drive those costs down, and we’re working closely with the allies. They are doing investments in systems that are similar to what we’re doing in the U.S.”
“I don’t know that any of those things would be considered truly attritable,” Meink said of CCAs. “But if you look at the cost trade with an adversary of a CCA with a number of long-range weapons compared to the aircraft they [adversaries] might throw against them, it’s a really good cost trade for us going forward.”
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