Collaborative Combat Aircraft

The Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) programme is the US Air Force's initiative to develop autonomous drone wingmen that can fly alongside crewed fighters, extending their sensor range, drawing enemy fire, or delivering weapons without a pilot aboard. On 17 June 2026 the Air Force awarded the first funded production contracts to two non-traditional defence companies: Anduril (FQ-44A) and General Atomics (FQ-42A). The three largest US primes, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, all competed and were excluded from the franchise. The FY2027 budget request carries $1.4 billion for development and approximately $1 billion for procurement, with the programme targeting more than 150 aircraft at under $30 million each by end of decade.

The programme's background spans several years of competitive prototyping. Anduril began production of its YFQ-44A Fury at Arsenal-1 in Columbus, Ohio in early 2026, rated at 150 aircraft per year, which became its primary argument for readiness. Shield AI's Hivemind autonomy software was selected for the CCA prototype programme in February 2026 and confirmed a mid-air software switch on the Fury airframe, demonstrating cross-platform interoperability. The June 2026 production award did not name Shield AI, leaving the software architecture question open for the production phase.

The exclusion of the legacy primes is the programme's most significant industrial-policy signal: the Air Force is betting that a next-generation autonomous combat aircraft franchise does not require the same companies that built the F-35. CCA's outcome will shape DoD autonomous air combat doctrine and procurement patterns for a decade, with direct implications for China's parallel loyal wingman development and for Allied Nations building comparable programmes such as the UK's Project NYX.