US Air Force has officially classified its first two Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) as fighters.
The two prototype aircraft, the YFQ-42A developed by General Atomics and the YFQ-44A from Anduril Industries, are the first uncrewed aircraft to receive a fighter designation.
Under Air Force naming conventions, the “Y” indicates a prototype, “F” stands for fighter, and “Q” signifies an unmanned system. Once these aircraft transition into production, the “Y” will be dropped from their names.
The CCA program aims to integrate autonomous drones as “loyal wingmen” to fly alongside manned fighters like the F-35 Lightning II.
Time To Replace Fighter Jets?
Elon Musk has suggested that drones should replace fighter jets. However, some say that drones would need to have the same electronics as fighter jets, which would make them expensive. Clearly more and more tasks are being gradually shifted to drones. Still, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are not likely to replace fighter jets anytime soon.
However, drones will fly alongside and in coordination with fighter jets and other combat platforms, taking on specific combat and combat-support tasks.
Aerial Manned Unmanned Teaming (MUM-T) is fast evolving. When combined with a much larger number of relatively cheaper drones, the strengths of an expensive manned fighter could be harnessed for better situational awareness and attack missions.
Evolving Combat Aviation
Combat aviation continues to be the most preferred means of prosecuting war. The one who controls air and space will control all operations in the air, on the surface, and subsurface. Military aviation also continues to see the fastest growth of technology.
While the combat aircraft features such as agility (speed, manoeuvrability), remain important, they have become less consequential. Occasions for close-combat engagements are reducing. Long-range beyond-visual-range (BVR) combat requires sensors and weapons that allow ‘see first, shoot first, hit first’ ability.
Drones and unmanned platforms can now provide high-exposure close air support. Long-range precision strike ability has become more important. Exposing expensive manned aircraft to mobile air defences will be risky. Air denial rather than air superiority will be easier to achieve.
A competitive, dense environment would require electronic warfare and cyber warfare superiority. Information superiority and a shortened decision loop would decide the victor.
Stealth, integrated sensors, and secure data-linked communications would be more important. To outdo adversaries, investments in Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR), Directed Energy Weapons (DEW), hypersonic platforms and weapons, cyber warfare capabilities, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) would be required. Manned Unmanned Teaming (MUM-T) will bring greater and faster effects at lower cost.
Gen-Next Fighter Aircraft
Future fighter aircraft technologies will enhance survivability in contested, well-defended environments and still deliver an arsenal for effect-based results. Integration with other aircraft will require secure, high-bandwidth data links connecting sensors across platforms and Terra-firma in multiple domain environments. Intelligent, usable data without information overload, often termed “data-to-decision” (D2D) capability, will be crucial.
A system-of-systems approach would greatly enhance situational awareness, operational reach, and survivability. AI will support multiple data assessments, high-speed decision-making, and autonomy. Helmet-mounted or even eye-retina displays will endeavour to give the pilot and systems operator an all-hemisphere picture, allowing more complete threat assessment and attack/response options.
The new aircraft will feature next-generation avionics, more efficient thrust-vectoring engines with in-built super-cruise, advanced stealth features, conformal weapon bays with extended long-range weapons with a high degree of post-launch autonomy. Improved on-board power generation and capacity will support powerful electronic warfare systems and DEW. All systems will talk to each other. The aircraft will have a powerful health monitoring and diagnostics suite and self-healing options.
At the design board stage itself, the airframe shaping, composite materials, emissions-absorbing paints, specially designed engine inlets and exhausts, and more passive sensors and concealed emitters will support low radar cross-section (RCS) without trading any flight performance.
Appropriate software will accompany plug-and-play interchangeable hardware. 3D tools will be used for both design and manufacture processes. Sixth-generation fighters would feature self-healing structures and breakthroughs in propulsion, materials, power generation, and weapon technology. Modern glass cockpits greatly improve situational awareness, and canopy or helmet displays allow sensor and weapon cuing.
Advantage Drones
Drones, or UAVs, are best used for “dull, dirty, or dangerous” missions in both military and non-military applications. For military, long-endurance surveillance missions, flying into contaminated areas, and operations in highly contested threat areas. Drones can also be used for reconnaissance, intelligence gathering, and target acquisition.
They can carry weapons for precision strikes, support targeting by ground-based weapons and airborne platforms, mark targets for laser weapons, jam enemy defences, and could be used as decoy formations. Larger UAVs will be used as aerial tankers and also for cargo delivery.
Drones are controlled remotely or operate with high-level autonomy. They have become more capable and versatile over time and are now used for a wide range of missions. Drones can be less expensive than fighter jets and can be used in large numbers. Without humans onboard, drones don’t require human support systems and don’t risk human life.
Swarm Drones
Swarm drones are becoming cheaper and more capable. The United States, Russia, China, India, and many other countries are developing them. The US plans to create thousands of autonomous drone systems to compete with China.
Low-cost swarm drones can be mass-produced cheaply. Some systems can launch multiple drones quickly. Some systems are designed to be compact and transportable. Some drone swarms use artificial intelligence (AI). Of course, some swarm drones may have reliability problems. Swarm drones also require significant support infrastructure. It may be expensive to equip militaries to destroy swarm drones.
Finally, the swarm drones may be part of and combine with MUM-T. XQ-58A Valkyrie drone is designed to be controlled by a parent aircraft and can operate as part of a swarm. The XQ-58A Valkyrie drone costs around US$5.5 million, including support, launch, and test equipment. The company aims to reduce the cost to US$2 million per unit.
Drones And Manned Unmanned Teaming
Drones and uninhabited systems are already flying in large numbers, and more action is unfolding. Dual-use (optionally manned) aircraft are evolving. Autonomous UAVs are operating from aircraft carriers. Next-generation UAVs will be able to take on all roles of ISR, surface strike, air defense, aerial refuelling, and air delivery.
By mid-2040s, it is envisaged that every aerial mission could be flown unmanned. Aerial drone swarms operating in mutual coordination, flying synchronously, and performing operational tasks have been repeatedly demonstrated, including by Indian manufacturers.
The swarm could overwhelm the defenses by numbers. Drone counters, including both “hard kill” and “soft kill,” are already evolving. These could be small arms fire, electro-optical weapons such as lasers, data-link jamming, electronic or cyber-attack, and directed energy weapons like microwaves. A drone swarm may be engaged by a counter-drone swarm. Manned and unmanned aircraft teaming will exploit the advantage of human in the loop with the strength of numbers to take on well-defended target systems.
Advantage Teaming Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA)
Fighter jets have been the backbone of military strategy for decades and are designed for air superiority and air dominance. All future fighter aircraft programs worldwide still have the aircrew on board.
Most of these are optionally manned, but more importantly, they can control or team up with drones. Together, they build and share situational awareness across the battlespace.
The US Air Force (USAF) is developing Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCAs) as autonomous “wingmen” drones to pair with manned fighters. They have also been working on AI-enabled fighter aircraft for over a decade. USAF’s goal is to field at least 1,000 CCAs. These CCAs will not require runways, giving them more operational flexibility.
To Summarise
In a 2011 article, the Economist called the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, the most expensive defense project in history, “The last manned fighter.”
The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II fighter jet costs between US$80 million and US$115 million, depending on the variant.
As of 2024, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s expected total cost is expected to top US$2 trillion over its entire life span given the U.S. military plans to fly it longer.
The Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor costs around US$361 million per aircraft, making it one of the most expensive fighter jets ever built. India has acquired 31 MQ-9B Predator drones for an estimated cost of US$3.9 billion. So large drones are not cheap. However, the CCA drones the USAF is developing are estimated to cost between US$25 and US$35 million each. This is about one-third the price of an F-35 Lightning II fighter jet.
Every CCA doesn’t have to have all kinds of systems, but one can have a mix of platforms with different capabilities, working together with a crewed aircraft. This gives you the most cost-effective set of capabilities. Concerns still loom over how the USAF will pay for its CCA drones and other advanced next-generation aircraft.
Secretary of the US Air Force, Frank Kendall, said that USAF is working to acquire what could ultimately be a fleet of multiple different types of CCA drones through iterative development cycles. “It depends upon the mix, right? What capabilities do you put on every aircraft, every CCA? What do you distribute,” he said. “I don’t regard CCAs as expendable. They’re not munitions. … we don’t send them all to die,” Kendall said.
“So there needs to be enough survivability in them – the combination of how you equip them, design them, plus tactics so that you can have reasonable attrition in most areas – but they are things that you are willing to let a few of die in order to gain an advantage”.
The survivable requirement requires an expensive countermeasure suite. CCA should “definitely” not be “exquisite” platforms. In this context, exquisite would refer to much higher-end (and expensive) drone designs, such as stealthy, highly advanced, heavier payload, flying-wing uncrewed combat air vehicles (UCAV).
USAF is developing a new sixth-generation stealthy crewed combat jet and advanced stealth tankers. The sixth-generation combat jet and CCA programs are part of the Air Force’s larger Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) initiative.
Under the Trump administration, a detailed review of US sixth-generation combat jet plans will take place. The administration will also be in a position to make new decisions about the CCA, next-generation aerial refueling aircraft, and other efforts.
These three potential new designs and platforms are all tied together, both operationally and from an affordability perspective.
When it comes to CCAs, the USAF expects them to have a transformative impact on its fights and day-to-day activities, including training and maintenance cycles. This will involve developing new concepts of operations and tactics, techniques, and procedures around the new drones.
The plans are to buy between 100 and 150 Stage 1 CCAs and multiple thousands of smaller drones across the program’s eventual increments. Crewed aircraft, including specially modified F-16 Vipers, will also support those efforts. What the Air Force learns from that experimentation could feed into the still-ongoing refinement of the Stage 2 requirements.
Both the U.S. and China are developing CCA drones featuring similar attributes or performance criteria. To maintain its advantage, the USA will have to have a robust manufacturing base and strong supply chain.
India’s CCAs are the “Abhimanyu” and the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) Combat Air Teaming System (CATS). These aircraft are designed to operate alongside manned fighters, such as the Tejas, Su-30 MKI, or Rafale. Abhimanyu, an unmanned aerial system (UAS), has been developed by NewSpace Research and Technologies and designed to operate with the Indian Navy’s MiG-29K fighters. It is engineered for carrier-based takeoff and landing.
CATS is an unmanned and manned combat aircraft air teaming system developed by HAL. The system will consist of a manned fighter aircraft and a set of swarming UAVs and UCAVs.
The primary aim is to create multiple advanced aerial platforms, including those that can act as atmospheric satellites for high-altitude surveillance, perform autonomous deep penetration precision strikes from standoff distances with maximum firepower, and reduce human error and the threat to life.
The mothership aircraft is likely to be a twin-seater HAL Tejas. Various other system sub-components are currently under development and will be jointly produced by HAL, National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL), Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), and Newspace Research & Technologies. HAL plans to complete all the project-related developmental work in 2025.
MUM-T is the domain of action, and Collaborative Combat Aircraft are the future of aerial warfare. The Indian Air Force (IAF), the Indian government, the Indian research and academic community, and the Indian industry are all gearing up for this evolving action. It is still a sunrise field. The time to Act is now.
- Air Marshal Anil Chopra (Retired) is an Indian Air Force veteran fighter test pilot and is currently the Director-General of the Center for Air Power Studies in New Delhi. He has been decorated with gallantry and distinguished service medals while serving in the IAF for 40 years. He tweets @Chopsyturvey
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