Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall speaks at the keynote of AFA 2023 Day One. (Brendon Smith/Breaking Defense)
WASHINGTON — Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said today that the service intends to have the wingman drones being developed under the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program in production by fiscal 2028.
“We intend to have the uncrewed collaborative combat aircraft in production by the end of the five year plan, if we can get started,” he told Politico’s Defense Summit.
CCA aims to have drones that fly in formation alongside the service’s next-generation fighter jet.
Kendall said that the CCA effort is “one of the most important” programs in the Air Force’s FY24 budget request still awaiting congressional action as members spar over the federal budget writ large. The Air Force asked for $392 million for CCA in its FY24 request. (The House today passed a short-term continuing resolution that will avoid a government shutdown, but that funding caps agency spending at last year’s levels.)
“I’m waiting on funding for that several billion dollars over the course of the FYDP [future years defense program],” he said.
Kendall noted that the CCA program has benefited from past programs on relevant technologies, such as DARPA’s Air Combat Evolution (ACE) program to develop artificial intelligence algorithms that can pilot fighters and Australia’s Loyal Wingman project with prime contractor Boeing.
“All those coming together convinced me that we were ready to make a commitment to this kind of capability,” he said.
The Air Force plans to build some 1,000 CCA drones with varying configurations for missions such as a sensor or jamming platform, but all designed to either work either autonomously or to be controlled by the pilot in the Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter.
“I think with this mix, this family of systems approach we’re taking — also in the mix are our new weapons like the JATM, the Joint Advanced Tactical Missile, which we’ll get into production the next few years — we’re gonna have a very formidable next generation, air dominance set of capabilities,” Kendall said.