WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force’s plan to create a fleet of drone wingmen to fly alongside piloted fighter jets will speed up in 2024, because the service ramps up its experimentation with autonomous flight.
These drones, which the Air Force calls collaborative combat aircraft, are intended to fly alongside F-35s and the longer term Next Generation Air Dominance platform. The service wants them to give you the option to perform a wide range of missions, including striking enemy targets, conducting surveillance, jamming enemy signals, and even acting as decoys.
The Air Force has been using a ballpark figure of 1,000 CCAs for planning, but Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall in November said the fleet will likely find yourself being larger than that.
But before fielding the drones, the Air Force must do more research on how autonomous flight will work, and the way it will possibly be folded into the day-to-day operations of units.
The service’s proposed 2024 budget calls for nearly $50 million to check autonomous software on F-16 fighters under a program called Project VENOM. One other $69 million can be used to launch an experimental operations unit team, which might start developing tactics and procedures to include CCAs right into a squadron.
Project VENOM, which stands for “Viper Experimentation and Next-generation Operations Model,” would load autonomous code into six F-16s. Those fighters can be flown by humans from takeoff to an in-air experimentation zone, where the self-flying software would take over. The Air Force hopes these experiments will show whether autonomous flight, as envisioned by the CCA concept, can bring the intended advantages.
The Air Force wants to gather in-flight data from the Project Venom tests about how pilots and machines work together, and use that information to create more refined autonomous software.
The experimental operations unit would also help the Air Force determine how CCAs might help with missions, and the way squadrons would train to make use of them. This is meant to chop down on the risks which may come from teaming autonomous drones up with crewed aircraft.
Speaking on the Washington-based Center for a Recent American Security think tank, Kendall said the Air Force is using Boeing MQ-28 Ghost Bats as experimental aircraft to team them up with crewed aircraft and get airmen operational experience.
The service also wants CCAs to be low cost enough that they may very well be “attritable,” meaning the service could afford to lose some in combat. Based on Kendall, CCAs will probably be roughly one-quarter to one-third of the fee of an F-35, suggesting they may run $20 million to $27 million.
Defense firms have already pitched several different concepts for CCAs, and the acquisition will take several years. The Air Force hopes to have the primary “increment” of CCAs in production later this decade, and fielded “in reasonable quantities” soon after, Kendall said.
Stephen Losey is the air warfare reporter for Defense News. He previously covered leadership and personnel issues at Air Force Times, and the Pentagon, special operations and air warfare at Military.com. He has traveled to the Middle East to cover U.S. Air Force operations.