USAF's unmanned Collaborative Combat Aircraft gain momentum

Just before the end of 2025, in a race against time to stay ahead of Russia and China in military aviation technology, USAF's third Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), Northrop Grumman’s YFQ-48A Talon Blue was added to the programme.

Earlier in 2025, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems delivered two unmanned YFQ-42A Dark Merlin aircraft, with serial numbers 25-1002 and 25-1004, and Anduril Industries delivered two unmanned YFQ-44A Fury aircraft, with serial numbers 25-1001 and 25-1003, to the USAF. Being all three test aircraft and competitor within the USAF CCA programme, the YFQ-42A, YFQ-44A and YFQ-48A are commonly known as “Loyal Wingman” and are destined to deliver next-generation capabilities that meet the urgent and evolving needs for manned-unmanned teaming with, for instance, the F-15EX Eagle II, F-35A Lightning II, F-22A Raptor, the future F-47 Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) platform and B-21 Raider.

USAF’s CCA programme aims to deliver affordable, advanced semi-autonomous aircraft to complement and augment the manned fighter fleet, to enhance operational flexibility and combat effectiveness in an increasingly complex and competitive global security environment. On 12 February 2026, the USAF announced that they recently integrated an open acquisition architecture CCA tests supported by the 412th Test Wing at Edwards AFB (CA). Acceleration of the CCA programme through implementation of Autonomy-Government Reference Architecture (A-GRA), across multiple vendor platforms and will validate a foundation of the USAF’s acquisition transformation.

A-GRA is a Modular Open System Approach (MOSA), designed to prevent 'vendor lock' by establishing a universal standard for mission autonomy. This allows the USAF to rapidly onboard new software and algorithms from a diverse range of traditional and non-traditional industry partners. This approach is central to USAF's effort to create a more agile and lethal force, capable of outpacing evolving threats. A vendor lock is a business scenario where a customer becomes heavily dependent on a single vendor for products or services, making it too expensive, difficult, or risky to switch to another competitor.

Besides the aforementioned CCA competitors, the past years, the USAF has been testing manned-unmanned teaming with the Kratos XQ-58A Valkyrie unmanned aircraft. The Valkyrie has been in the inventory of the 40th Flight Test Squadron/96th Test Wing at Eglin AFB (FL) since 2022. The XQ-67A had its first flight on 28 February 2024 and was later designated as YFQ-42. At this moment, it is unknown to Scramble Magazine if more competitors will be added to the CCA programme or that the USAF will choose just one or whether they will complement each other.

Credit photos: USAF / Credit patch: https://flightlineinsignia.com (1942 stands for starting the test flights from the Californian desert which is nowadays Edwards AFB)