The range of the U.S. Air Force’s prototype autonomous Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) is to be at least 700 nautical miles–greater than the 590 nautical mile range of the Air Force F-22 Raptor fighter by Lockheed Martin [LMT] and the 670 nautical mile range of the service’s F-35A Lightning II, also by Lockheed Martin.
A Tuesday graphic released by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Allvin listed the “700 plus” nautical mile range for the two CCA prototypes–the General Atomics YFQ-42A Gambit and Anduril Industries‘ YFQ-44A Fury. The graphic also details other desired features of CCA and the Boeing [BA] F-47.
The DoD reconciliation bill would accelerate both with $678 million for CCA and $400 million for F-47 (Defense Daily, Apr. 28).
Allvin’s Tuesday graphic lists “operational dates” for F-47 and CCA as “2025-2029.”
In a Wednesday email, the Air Force said that the F-47 would fly before the end of the Trump administration.
Beale AFB, Calif.–the home of the U-2 surveillance plane–is to house the Aircraft Readiness Unit for CCAs to allow them to deploy quickly.
The service has said that the two CCA prototypes have begun ground testing of their propulsion, avionics, autonomy and ground control (Defense Daily, May 1).
In April last year, the Air Force narrowed the CCA Increment 1 field to General Atomics and Anduril Industries. While the service had said it planned to conduct flight tests this summer, now the service has revised that timing to this year.
The service plans on an Increment 1 downselect in fiscal 2026 and the start of Increment 2 development that year.
During the Biden administration, former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall established a planning goal of 1,000 CCAs. Allvin’s Tuesday graphic lists “1,000 plus” as the CCA planning number, while listing CCA speed as “classified” and “stealth” as another desired attribute.
“The CCA program’s ambitions of fielding over 1,000 aircraft on a relatively short timeline will surely stress the industrial base, contracting arrangements, and related aspects of the acquisition enterprise,” according to a new Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) report on CCA. “According to some industry experts, establishing the necessary supply chain will require the Air Force to make significant investments, including tapping the commercial market and nontraditional defense firms to buy jet engines, additive manufacturing, thermoplastics, and other inputs.”
“DoD’s longstanding shortcomings at accessing commercial markets, including with software technology, pose a formidable obstacle to CCA development,” the CSBA study said. “It remains to be seen whether the Air Force can erect contracting processes that allow quick-turn improvements to CCAs in response to real-world military crises.”
For the F-47, Allvin’s graphic lists “Mach 2 plus” as the desired speed, 1,000 nautical miles “plus” as the aircraft’s range and “185 plus” as the target number–roughly the same as the number of F-22s fielded.
The Air Force has “a lot of the [F-47] preparations done in terms of planning and thinking through the process of what do they really want,” Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), told the Defense Writers Group on Tuesday.
“I would be very pleased, but very surprised if they could deliver within two to three years,” he said. “We’re all, I think, in favor of the F-47, but I would be surprised if it rolled out operationally within two years.”
Does Ukraine point to the use of long-range CCAs as a critical component in future conflict?
“This is the new form of warfare, push back the zone that Chinese missiles, for example, can reach so you can bring up your aircraft and your forces close enough where they can be deployed and recovered,” Reed said.