The Air Force’s newest aircraft—and the first in the new category of autonomous Collaborative Combat Aircraft—will be on public display for the first time at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference Sept. 16-18 at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Md.
The Air Force Research Laboratory will position full-scale replicas of two CCA designs, one in each of two AFRL booths at the show:
- Anduril Industries’ “Fury” Collaborative Combat Aircraft Increment I will be at AFRL’s booth No. 503 and
- General Atomics Aeronautical’s Increment I CCA at AFRL’s CCA booth, No. 1834. The model will represent the air-to-air Gambit version of its CCA family.
And General Atomics will display an actual XQ-67 aircraft in its booth at the show, according to a source close to the company. General Atomics has said its air-to-air CCA offering is based on the XQ-67 platform.
The Air Force’s CCA Increment I program is focused on air-to-air combat; crewed fighters will be able to designate targets for weapons carried by the CCA, expanding the volume of weapons available to pilots on a combat mission. CCAs are envisioned as costing under $28 million apiece, a fraction of the $80 million to $100 million cost of a crewed fighter jet.
“If you come to the Air Force Association meeting next week, you’ll see two full-scale models of the aircraft that we’re building,”
said Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, speaking at the Aerospace Summit in Washington, D.C., Sept. 10.
“These will be ‘loyal wingmen,’ and they will be controlled by a crewed fighter, either an F-35, in all likelihood, or possibly NGAD [the Next Generation Air Dominance fighter] when we define what NGAD is,”
Kendall added.
NGAD and CCA are closely aligned in Air Force plans; NGAD was defined as a family of systems, and CCA were funded out of the NGAD budget line. But Kendall recently said decided the Air Force should “pause” to rethink NGAD, driven by cost, rapidly changing threats, and new concepts for how USAF can achieve air superiority.
The Gambit model AFRL will display is closely patterned after General Atomics’ XQ-67A Off-Board Sensing Station.
C. Mark Brinkley, senior director of strategic communications and marketing at General Atomics, said the company has “a lot of surprises” in store for the show, but would not confirm that the XQ-67 would be on site. That aircraft has already flown, a clear distinction between it and the Anduril model. Exactly how different XQ-67 is from the Gambit is unclear.
Anduril “Fury”
Anduril and General Atomics were selected to build their respective CCAs in April. A subsequent effort, Increment II, is still in competition, and companies not selected for the first iteration can compete for the second.
AFRL said it is displaying the two aircraft
“in partnership with the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center,” whose directorate for fighters and advanced aircraft manages the program. The CCAs on display are “uncrewed weapon systems leveraging [Department of the Air Force] investments in autonomy and crewed-uncrewed teaming to project power against adversaries.”
Top Photo: The Air Force Research Laboratory’s XQ-67A Off Board Sensing Station
Source: Air & Space Forces Magazine