
While top Trump advisor Elon Musk has suggested a near-term end to manned fighter aircraft, such as the F-35, and their replacement by artificial intelligence-enabled drones, former and current DoD officials have said that is unrealistic and that unmanned combat fleets are not ready for prime time. The U.S. Air Force is the military service that is perhaps the farthest down the unmanned road under Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall's more than two-year Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) effort. "I was…