Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA)

Definition

CCA is an Air Force program (a sibling to NGAD) to field low-cost, attritable autonomous aircraft that extend the sensor and weapons reach of crewed platforms. Increment 1 vendors include General Atomics and Anduril; later increments will expand mission sets and autonomy. CCAs are deliberately smaller and cheaper than traditional fighters to enable mass.

Why It Matters

CCA reshapes the fighter-force equation by substituting software-defined autonomy for crewed airframes. It's a major pull for AI/autonomy, communications, and unmanned-systems vendors.

Example

The Air Force plans an initial CCA fleet of 1,000+ aircraft, pairing them with F-35 and NGAD mission packages to generate combat mass without proportional crew growth.

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