Latest news with #Allvin
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Allvin: Air Force owns more tech on F-47, dodging F-35 mistake
The Air Force's acquisition strategy shift on the F-47 sixth-generation fighter will give the service greater ownership of the jet's technology and allow quicker and easier future upgrades, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin said Tuesday. In a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Allvin confirmed to Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., that the service is taking a markedly different acquisition approach to the Boeing-made F-47, previously referred to as Next Generation Air Dominance, than it did on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. 'The primary difference is that we now have more control over the [F-47] project as it moves forward,' Allvin said. 'We have in-sourced more. We have more ownership of the tech base. We guided a government reference architecture, so we own the mission systems. And so others can come in and play, but we own the development, the upgrade.' A government reference architecture, or GRA, is a road map provided by the government that guides a program's design, development, production and sustainment processes. Top Air Force officials, particularly former Secretary Frank Kendall, have publicly expressed regret for how the military's F-35 deal with Lockheed Martin was structured. In a May 2023 roundtable with reporters, Kendall lamented the Pentagon did not obtain rights to the F-35's sustainment data from Lockheed Martin when the original deal was signed. This stemmed from the acquisition philosophy of the time, called Total System Performance, which meant the contractor on a program would own it for the system's entire life cycle. The Government Accountability Office also highlighted in a September 2023 report the consequences of failing to obtain rights to F-35 technical data, which have hindered the military's ability to sustain the jet on its own and slowed down repairs. Kendall felt so strongly that this was a major misstep that in the May 2023 discussion, he referred to it as 'acquisition malpractice,' and said such an approach creates 'a perpetual monopoly' for the contractor. He pledged the Air Force would not make that 'serious mistake' on the NGAD program and said the service would have access to the intellectual property it needs. Kendall also said the NGAD aircraft would use a modular open system design that would allow the Air Force to bring in new suppliers as it upgrades parts of the system. Allvin's comments Tuesday seem to confirm that approach was used in finalizing Boeing's deal with the Air Force to create the F-47. And he said this will allow rapid software-based upgrades that aren't reliant on the original contractor. 'The upgrades can come at the speed of software, not hardware. [Upgrades] can come at the speed of our engineers understanding how fast to advance, versus dealing with the contractor and paying the extra cost,' Allvin said. Future technology upgrades will also be more easily added to the service's nascent collaborative combat aircraft, the YFQ-42 and YFQ-44, which are being designed by General Atomics and Anduril Industries, Allvin said. 'They're all going to be under the same mission systems architecture,' Allvin said. 'So we won't just be upgrading one platform, we'll be upgrading a system, and so the American taxpayer will get more combat capability out of their money.' Allvin also said the service was learning from the F-35 program's mistakes on the F-47. 'We're going to have some conversations about F-35 and how we don't want to repeat that,' he said.
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
F-15E Strike Eagles To Leave England For Good
The U.S. Air Force is planning to return its F-15E Strike Eagles from RAF Lakenheath in England and consolidate its fleet stateside. Currently, the F-15Es in the United Kingdom are the only permanently forward-deployed examples of the aircraft, which remain the service's first choice for a wide variety of critical missions around the globe. Confirmation of the plan to bring the two squadrons of F-15Es back from Lakenheath was provided yesterday by Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen. David Allvin. This came during a hearing on the Posture of the Department of the Air Force in Review of the Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 2026, held by the Senate Committee on Armed Services. Senator Theodore P. Budd of North Carolina asked Allvin about the plans for the Lakenheath Strike Eagles, in relation to Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in the same state. This base is currently home to F-15E frontline and training squadrons under the 4th Fighter Wing. 'One thing that stuck out to me was the arrival of the F-35s at Lakenheath Air Base, and that once they are up and running, two Strike Eagle units will be returning stateside,' Budd said. 'Has a decision been made on where those aircraft will end up?' Allvin responded that a final decision on the relocation was still to be made, but confirmed that the two F-15E squadrons would be coming back to the United States. A timeline for the move was not provided. Allvin noted that the Lakenheath F-15Es are equipped with the significantly more powerful F100-PW-229 turbofans, in contrast to those at Seymour Johnson, which use the older Pratt & Whitney F100-PW-220 engines. Of the 218 F-15Es in the Air Force inventory, 119 are powered by the Dash 220 turbofan engines that produce some 23,500 pounds of thrust each. The other 99 have the F100-PW-229s, each of which is rated at 29,000 pounds of thrust. Allvin further observed that Seymour Johnson 'will be critical to the F-15E and F-15EX community as far as the training unit and the operational unit for the E, so that certainly is an attractive landing spot right now.' The Air Force boss agreed with Budd's assessment that an influx of younger and more capable F-15E airframes to Seymour Johnson would be a good way of ensuring the futures of both the combat and training missions at the base. This would become even more relevant if the Air Force follows through with its aspiration to retire the F100-PW-220-powered jets, which it had previously planned to do by the end of Fiscal Year 2028. Regardless of where the Lakenheath F-15Es end up, it's significant that the Air Force is planning to remove these jets from England. Currently, Lakenheath is home to the 492nd and 494th Fighter Squadrons flying the F-15E. These squadrons each have a primary aircraft assigned (PAA) complement of 26 aircraft, although this is subject to some fluctuation. Under the 48th Fighter Wing, these operate alongside the 493rd and 495th Fighter Squadrons flying the F-35A, the first of the Air Force's stealth jets to be based in Europe. As well as being fitted with the -229 engines, Lakenheath's F-15Es have been at the front of the queue to receive a sophisticated new radar warning and electronic warfare suite, the AN/ALQ-250 Eagle Passive/Active Warning Survivability System, or EPAWSS, which you can read more about here. The first F-15E equipped with the advanced EPAWSS Electronic Warfare system takes off from San Antonio and heads home to the @ next-gen tech enhances pilot situational awareness and ensures the F-15 can tackle modern threats. — Boeing Defense (@BoeingDefense) January 17, 2025 EPAWSS is part of a rolling program of upgrades for the F-15E in recent years. Other work has included adding the Raytheon AN/APG-82 AESA radar, which is also integrated into the electronic warfare system as it is a highly capable electronic attack weapon in its own right. Certain niche capabilities have also been added to the jets, such as the AN/ASQ-236 Dragon's Eye radar pod that you can read about in this previous feature. New weapons and weapon configurations have also appeared, adding to the F-15E's versatility. Overall, however, there is still uncertainty about what the Air Force's Strike Eagle fleet might look like in the future. This time last year, TWZ reported on the effort of members of Congress to block Air Force plans to send more than half of its F-15E fleet to the boneyard in the coming years. The Air Force argues that it needs to retire its older F-15Es to help free up resources for its future modernization plans, but lawmakers have been concerned about dwindling numbers of available tactical aircraft if this were to happen. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2024, an annual defense policy bill, blocked the Air Force from retiring more than 68 F-15Es before the end of Fiscal Year 2029. Just last month, the F-15E was mentioned in proposed legislation put forward by Republican leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees. The proposed spending plan includes $127.46 million 'to prevent the retirement of F-15E aircraft,' with the exception of 'individual F-15E aircraft that the Secretary of the Air Force determines, on a case by case basis, to be no longer mission capable and uneconomical to repair because of aircraft accidents, mishaps, or excessive material degradation and non-airworthiness status of certain aircraft.' In the meantime, the F-15E remains a highly prized asset, selected for a variety of high-profile operational missions, a fact underlined in April 2024 when the aircraft shot down more than 70 Iranian drones heading for Israel. Moreover, the Lakenheath F-15E fleet, in particular, has been something of an on-call force for operations throughout Europe and the Middle East. High-profile activities have included everything from long-range strikes in Libya to supporting constant operations in Syria. TWZ has reached out to the 48th Fighter Wing for more details about its future plans, although the most likely option would appear to be the replacement of the F-15Es with additional F-35As. However, it's unclear if these would be fielded in the form of a like-for-like replacement in both squadrons, to maintain the current four-squadron structure. It's also worth bearing in mind that the plans to relocate F-15Es from England are also dependent on being able to deliver and sustain combat-capable F-35As over the next decade, something that Senator Budd referred to yesterday. As we have reported in the past, there have been some significant problems in realizing this goal. Due to problems with the aircraft's critical Tech Refresh 3 software, or TR-3, production deliveries of the F-35 were suspended for around a year. In July 2024, it was confirmed that deliveries of the stealth fighters would resume 'in the near future,' clearing a backlog of jets sitting in storage, although the TR-3 would still only be installed in what's described as a 'truncated' form. This raises questions about when the F-35 will actually be able to make full use of the long-awaited Block 4 improvements that this software underpins. Concerns with getting fully capable F-35As online and in sufficient numbers have, in the past, seen Congress oppose Air Force plans to retire combat aircraft, and the relocation of F-15Es from Lakenheath to the United States could still face resistance. Nevertheless, the F-35A is now firmly embedded at Lakenheath, where it seems they will be provided with forward-deployed B61-12 thermonuclear gravity bombs. Earlier this year, we reported on new evidence of construction work on protective shelters at the base, pointing to the fact that the United States is poised to bring nuclear bombs back to the United Kingdom after nearly two decades. When combined with the stealthy F-35A, the B61-12 is increasingly being viewed as a strategic weapons-delivery system, as well as being a tactical strike asset, and would be a significant advance over the F-15E in the same role. The F-35As could possibly be paired with Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) in the coming years, although at this stage, these drones are not set to be a direct replacement for crewed aircraft, especially not the two-seat F-15E. The F-15EX could be another option to replace F-15Es at Lakenheath, and an argument could be made that the combination of F-35A and F-15EX would be the optimum way of ensuring dominance in air superiority and air-to-ground, and meeting the demand of high-tempo deployments. While planned F-15EX numbers have fluctuated, the Air Force most recently said it wants to buy 98 F-15EX aircraft. A fleet of 98 F-15EX aircraft is just about sufficient for five operational squadrons of 18 aircraft, plus a handful of training and test aircraft. Air National Guard units in California, Louisiana, Michigan, and Oregon are all slated to get the F-15EX. With plans to field the F-15EX with the active-duty Air Force at Kadena Air Base in Japan, current numbers wouldn't support their fielding at Lakenheath, too. While the future shape of the U.S. Air Force's F-15E fleet is still to be determined, and with the service clearly still working out where it should be based, it seems that it's now very much set on removing its Strike Eagles from Lakenheath. Contact the author: thomas@
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Air Force Chief Responds To Possibility Of Buying New ‘Block 80' F-16s
Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen. David Allvin today responded to questioning regarding the potential of a new version of the prolific F-16, a so-called Block 80, as a way of increasing the combat mass of the service in the future. While the Air Force doesn't at this point have a plan to start buying Vipers again, it's certainly interesting that the topic is up for discussion, especially with the service looking hard at how it will balance its next-generation fighter requirements, while introducing the F-47 crewed stealth fighter and Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) drones. At the same time, it continues to buy the F-35A stealth fighter and the F-15EX. Alongside Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall and Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman, Gen. Allvin was testifying before the Senate Committee on Armed Services. Senator Thomas Cotton, the chairman of the Senate Republican Conference and chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, asked Allvin about the potential need to buy new aircraft to replace the Air Force's oldest fighters, some of which will still be flying into the 2040s. 'Focusing on just the next decade, then, our current acquisition options are pretty limited,' Cotton said, before asking Allvin: 'Would you be able to use newly built U.S.-configured Block 80 F-16s to strengthen our strike fighter fleet, if Congress can find additional funds for such an effort?' 'Looking at what that would be to take that export variant and adapt it to a Block 80, and the time it would take, and where that would fall in the production line, I'd have to get back with you with more details to see if that would be an advisable situation,' Allvin responded. 'I'd really have to look at what the defense industrial base can do on that,' Allvin added, 'because my sense is that the current Block 70 is really eating up a lot of production lines and production capacity and all the FMS [Foreign Military Sales].' At this point, it's worth noting that it's unclear whether the Block 80 exists as a concept for the Air Force or whether the designation was being used in the hearing in a purely speculative way. TWZ has reached out to Lockheed Martin for more details. Obviously, however, Allvin was happy to consider the idea of a new version of the F-16 for the service, even if only on a hypothetical level. Undoubtedly, the in-production Block 70/72 F-16C/D aircraft are already highly capable, featuring sophisticated avionics, mission systems, active electronically scanned array radar and a digital electronic warfare suite. The supposed Block 80, however, would presumably be more capable still, as well as being adapted for the specific needs of the Air Force. Aside from the Block 80, Cotton also asked if the Air Force would potentially have a place for the Block 70 (and the related Block 72), currently being built by Lockheed Martin in Greenville, South Carolina, for export customers. MYTHBUSTER MYTH: The F-16 is a legacy, outdated technology from the The F-16 is a critical piece of 21st century security, connecting assets in the battlespace. The newest, most advanced F-16, Block 70/72 offers capabilities to air forces around the world! — Lockheed Martin (@LockheedMartin) August 11, 2023 Again, Allvin said he would take the question for the record and come back with a fuller response. In particular, he said he would have to look in more detail at 'what the export variant can and can't do, and any sort of adjustments we would have to make to make it more easily integrable with our U.S.-built fighters. I would need to see what the integration opportunities and costs would be before I can give you a good answer.' Whether Block 80, or Block 70/72, there remains a big question over whether an Air Force order for these jets would be feasible, given the limited production capacity at the Greenville plant, as you can read more about here. Interestingly, the possibility of the Air Force buying new-production Block 70/72 aircraft to bolster its tactical aviation fleets in the near term has come up in the past. Back in 2021, the outgoing Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, Will Roper, suggested the service might want to order an advanced version of the F-16, such as the Block 70/72. 'As you look at the new F-16 production line in South Carolina, that system has some wonderful upgraded capabilities that are worth thinking about as part of our capacity solution,' Roper said, in an interview with Aviation Week. The idea was quickly shot down by the then Air Force Chief of Staff General Charles Q. Brown Jr., who was vehement that the F-16 — even a much-improved version — was not the right choice for the future Air Force. In particular, he pointed to the F-16's inability to receive software updates at the speed that's desired and its lack of open-architecture software protocols that would allow it to be rapidly reconfigured. At the same time, Brown did, however, bring up the possibility of a 'clean-sheet design' for a future fighter, which he described as a 'four-and-a-half-gen or fifth-gen-minus' aircraft. This would be cheap enough to be procured in the numbers required to eventually replace the F-16. But perhaps, after all, the idea of a potential future Air Force F-16 buy is not altogether dead. Speaking today, Gen. Allvin stressed the importance of having 'not only the right capacity but the capability … to make sure that we have the right mix of the high-end to be able to dominate and be relevant in an Indo-Pacific fight, as well as other fighters that may not need to be as sophisticated as our fifth-generation, sixth-generation.' Furthermore, Allvin said that CCA drones — at least as far as Increment One is concerned — will not be able to replace crewed fighters like the F-16 and the F-15E. 'My assessment [of the CCA] as of right now, it will not replace that. It will be a great augmentation. And its threshold is to be able to work with the F-35 and the F-22 even before the F-47 gets fielded, so it will help us deliver more combat capability at a better cost point. But as far as replacing the manned fighters, that remains to be seen. What we have built into Increment One, my assessment right now is that would not be a good one-for-one replacement.' Meanwhile, the need to replace aging F-16s, which still serve as a backbone of the USAF's fighter fleet, is becoming more acute, Allvin noted. 'As we continue to keep the older aircraft, they do become more and more expensive to maintain,' Allvin said, while the mission capable rate 'is not what we'd like it to be.' He added that the average Air Force F-16 'was built right about the time the Cold War ended. So even those F-16s are getting pretty old.' As of 2024, the mission capable rate (MCR) for the F-16C stood at 64 percent, down from almost 72 percent in 2021. This compares with 52 percent for the F-22, and 86 percent for the brand-new F-15EX. The designated replacement for the F-16 should be the F-35 stealth fighter, although there have long been signs that the Air Force doesn't see this platform as necessarily the direct successor to all its legacy tactical fighters. The Air Force F-35A buy is still officially pegged at 1,763 aircraft, but there have been reports that, as early as 2018, the service had prepared a study that called for these orders to be cut back to 1,050. The Air Force is, notably, also buying F-15EX fighters, alongside F-35As, so clearly hasn't entirely given up on acquiring fourth-generation fighters. In the past, Allvin has also raised the possibility of some kind of light crewed fighter that could serve as a future adjunct to more advanced and costly fifth- and sixth-generation fighters. Allvin presented a highly notional concept illustration for a light fighter last year, as you can read about here. Despite the Air Force's commitment to the F-35, the Joint Strike Fighter program remains an enormously expensive one — the costliest in Pentagon history — leaving room for discussions, at least, about a cheaper crewed fighter. With advanced versions of the F-16 now being manufactured for export customers, it's perhaps no surprise that the Viper, or a further optimized iteration of it, is being at least discussed by some as potential equipment for the U.S. Air Force, too. Contact the author: thomas@
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Plans To Modify Qatari 747 Into Air Force One Now Being Drawn Up By USAF
The U.S. Air Force is now actively exploring what it would take to turn an already heavily-modified 747-8i airliner from Qatar into a platform that can meet extremely stringent requirements to serve in the Air Force One role. President Donald Trump's administration confirmed earlier this month that it has been in talks with Qatari authorities about receiving the jet, which has been valued at roughly $400 million, ostensibly as a gift. TWZ has already highlighted serious questions about the feasibility of converting the Qatari jet into an 'interim' Air Force One, especially before the end of Trump's second term in 2029, as you can read more about here. Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink, who was sworn in just on May 16, and Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force Gen. David Allvin answered questions about the potential of turning the Qatari 747-8i into an Air Force One presidential aircraft from members of the Senate Armed Services Committee today. 'As you know, any platform used for presidential travel must be fully secure, survivable – and this is the important part – capable of supporting uninterrupted command and control under the most demanding conditions, including in the event of a nuclear crisis,' Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat, said in the lead-in to a question for Meink and Allvin about the proposed conversion. 'This isn't just about ensuring presidential protection, though that is very important. This is about our national security and protecting all Americans from the dangers posed if the President's sensitive communications are intercepted, or if he is out of contact, God forbid, with our nation's military during a crisis.' 'Secretary Meink, General Allvin, do you concur that the upgrades required for a foreign-provided plane to meet the operational security standards of Air Force One would be significant?' she asked. 'So, the Secretary of Defense [Pete Hegseth] has directed the Air Force to basically start planning to modify the aircraft,' Secretary Meink said in response to a question from Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat. 'We will have to look at all of those issues you just addressed in those modifications.' Gen. Allvin responded that he was in alignment with Secretary Meink's position. 'Any civilian aircraft will take significant modifications to' to turn it into a suitable Air Force One, Meink after further questioning. 'As I said, we're asked, based on [the Defense] Secretary's direction, we are postured, and we're off looking at that right now, what it's going to take for that particular aircraft.' It is worth noting that Boeing is already in the process of converting two other 747-8is originally built as commercial airliners into new VC-25B Air Force One aircraft. However, those aircraft were never delivered to their intended customer and are not as heavily modified to start as the Qatari 747-8i in question. Boeing stopped producing 747s entirely in 2022. Work on the VC-25Bs has been repeatedly delayed, which has been a key contributing factor in the emergence of the general idea of an 'interim' Air Force One since Trump took office in January. Sen. Duckworth also raised concerns 'that requirements have been loosened' to try to accelerate work on VC-25Bs. Secretary Meink said he was unaware of any such changes to the Air Force One requirements, but noted he has only been in his current post since last week. There are certainly differences in the requirements for the VC-25Bs compared to the existing VC-25A Air Force One jets, which are based on older 747-200 aircraft. Most notably, the replacement presidential planes will not be able to refuel in flight, at least as far as is currently known, something that was previously seen as a vital feature, especially in the event of a severe contingency. 'Do I have your commitment that you would advise the President not to reduce any requirements that will lower operational security for any aircraft to be used as Air Force One?' Duckworth asked Meink. 'I will be quite clear and discuss that with Secretary [of Defense], up to the President if necessary, if we feel there's any threats that we are unable to address,' Meink said. As TWZ has already noted, converting any aircraft into one that is secure enough to provide safe transport for the President of the United States, as well as allow for constant communication, including if they need to order a nuclear strike, is an extremely complex process. The aircraft has to be physically hardened inside and out against a plethora of threats, from the electromagnetic pulse of a nuclear weapon going off to incoming surface-to-air missiles to enemy intelligence-gathering efforts. This, in turn, requires significant modifications right down to the aircraft's core structure. As is highlighted by the tight controls around sourcing spares for the existing VC-25As, there are specific processes around vetting individual parts to protect against espionage and sabotage. There is the possibility that the Qatari 747-8i could end up being used as a source of spare parts for the future VC-25Bs, as well as the 747-based E-4C Survivable Airborne Operations Center (SAOC) strategic command post aircraft the Air Force is also acquiring. Whether the Qatari 'gift' of the 747-8i to the Trump Administration even goes through in the end remains to be seen, given a host of additional legal and ethical hurdles and concerns. At the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing just today, Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat, asked Secretary Meink and Gen. Allvin about whether they were aware of a request from Qatar to buy F-35 Joint Strike Fighters and implied the possibility of a quid pro quo exchange. Meink took the question for the record to respond to later. CNN did also report yesterday, citing anonymous sources, that President Trump's administration had reached out to Qatar first about acquiring the 747-8i before the government in Doha had proposed offering it as a gift. Whatever the case, the Air Force is now at least looking into what specifically would be needed to turn the Qatari royal jet into a new Air Force One. Contact the author: joe@
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Our First Look At The YFQ-42 ‘Fighter Drone' Collaborative Combat Aircraft
We now have our first actual look at General Atomics' YFQ-42A 'fighter drone' prototype. The YFQ-42A, as well as Anduril's YFQ-44A, are being developed under the first phase, or Increment 1, of the U.S. Air Force's Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program, and both designs are expected to make their maiden flights later this year. Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force Gen. David Allvin shared the picture of the YFQ-42A seen at the top of this story on social media today. The Air Force had announced the start of ground testing of both Increment 1 CCA designs on May 1, at which time the first images of a Anduril's YFQ-44A were also released. 'THE WORLD's FIRST LOOK AT OUR NEW YFQ-42A!' Allvin wrote in an accompanying post on X. 'As the @DeptofDefense matches threats to capabilities under @SecDef's [Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's] leadership, Collaborative Combat Aircraft will prove not only cost-effective, but truly lethal…No doubts these uncrewed fighters will put our adversaries on notice!' THE WORLD's FIRST LOOK AT OUR NEW YFQ-42A! As the @DeptofDefense matches threats to capabilities under @SecDef's leadership, Collaborative Combat Aircraft will prove not only cost-effective, but truly lethal…No doubts these uncrewed fighters will put our adversaries on notice! — General David Allvin (@OfficialCSAF) May 19, 2025 'The YFQ-42A is an exciting next step for our company,' David Alexander, President of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc., said in a separate statement. 'It reflects many years of partnership with the U.S. Air Force of advancing unmanned combat aviation for the United States and its allies around the world, and we're excited to begin ground testing and move to first flight.' What can be seen in the head-on view of the YFQ-42A we have now is largely in line with renderings and physical models that General Atomics has shown in the past. The design has some low-observable (stealthy) features and shares some broad similarities with past company designs like the Avenger. It is also notably less slender than Anduril's YFQ-44A, which could offer advantages and disadvantages. General Atomics has also previously confirmed that its CCA design is derived from the experimental XQ-67A drone originally developed for the Air Force's once-secretive Off-Board Sensing Station (OBSS) program. A core aspect of OBSS was a so-called 'genus/species' concept, involving a core 'genus' set of components from which multiple 'species' of differently configured drones could be crafted, lessons from which the Air Force has said are being incorporated broadly into the CCA program. General Atomics has been further proving that concept out via its Gambit family of drones, which all feature a common 'chassis' that incorporates landing gear, as well as key mission and flight control computer systems. The XQ-67A has been flying for more than a year now, offering General Atomics a valuable risk reduction asset for its CCA work, as well. Though partially obscured by the flight-test data probe, there is a notably different colored section on the bottom of the front of the nose with what looks to be a grill and an additional feature of some kind above it, the purpose of which is not immediately clear. Past renderings of the General Atomics CCA design have shown a trapezoidal window in the same general location, a feature typically associated with forward-facing electro-optical and/or infrared sensor systems. As TWZ has noted in the past, the position under the nose could be a likely location for an infrared search and track (IRST) sensor. IRSTs can spot stealthy targets and offer other benefits, and would align with the air-to-air combat role that is expected to be the main focus of the Increment 1 CCAs, at least initially. General Atomics has been separately using its stealthy Avenger drones to demonstrate potential air-to-air combat capabilities, including while equipped with podded IRST systems. Anduril's YFQ-44A also notably has what appears to be a forward-facing camera system prominently on top of its nose, which could, at least, be used to provide visual inputs for control and additional situational awareness during initial testing. General Atomics' YFQ-42A prototype could have a broadly similar system installed in its nose. What may be the doors for the YFQ-42A's ventral payload bay are also visible, along with the drone's tricycle landing gear. 'I think CCA can actually be, in some cases, a mobility aircraft,' Mike Atwood, vice president for Advanced Programs at General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI), had said during a panel discussion at the Air & Space Forces Association's (AFA) 2025 Warfare Symposium in March. 'One of the reasons that GA chose to have an internal weapons bay was for carrying not just missiles and kinetics, but to do that logistics.' 'We showed up at these World War II leftover airfields. And we quickly realized these airfields are in really bad shape, really bad shape, and we started to really appreciate runway distance,' Atwood had also said at AFA's annual Warfare Symposium. 'It's hard to make a fast-moving aircraft use a lot less runway. And so what we realized is we needed a trailing-arm landing gear.' A trailing-arm landing gear arrangement helps ease the impact of landing, which in turn can help reduce wear and tear, something that is especially beneficial for operations from short and potentially rough fields. It can also similarly help with rough field takeoffs. The Air Force said that the Increment 1 CCAs are the first aircraft, crewed or uncrewed, to be developed from the ground up to align with its Agile Combat Employment (ACE) concepts of operations. ACE centers heavily on short-notice and otherwise irregular deployments, including to far-flung locations with limited infrastructure. You can read more about how the Air Force's CCA vision aligns with ACE here. As it stands now, the Air Force is still looking to acquire 1,000 CCAs, if not more, across a series of iterative development cycles. Service officials have previously said that between 100 and 150 Increment 1 CCAs could be acquired, but it remains unclear whether that fleet with consist of YFQ-42As, YFQ-44As, or a mix of both types. 'A competitive Increment 1 production decision is expected in fiscal year 2026,' which begins on October 1, 2025, the Air Force had said as part of the announcement about the start of ground testing at the beginning of the month. The Air Force is now in the process of finalizing requirements for Increment 2 of CCA, which are expected to be significantly different from those for Increment 1. In March, Air Force Maj. Gen. Joseph D. Kunkel, director of Force Design, Integration, and Wargaming and deputy chief of staff for Air Force Futures, indicated that the second phase of the program could call for designs that are both less complex and cheaper. More details are likely to continue to emerge about the Increment 1 CCA designs, as well as other plans for the program, as the YFQ-42A and YFQ-44A progress through ground testing toward their first flights. Contact the author: joe@
