The Air Force’s aircraft fleet is full of fighters, bombers, tankers and other aircraft that are still flying after decades or even generations.
But the service’s planned joint combat aircraft — drones that will fly alongside manned fighters — likely won’t last even a generation before needing to be replaced or heavily overhauled, Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin said Thursday.
Allvin said, speaking at the Air and Space Forces Association in Arlington, Va., that planning from the start to replace CCAs regularly is the best way to keep their missions simple and costs down so the service can use them in large numbers can perform.
“I don’t want collaborative fighters that last 25 to 30 years,” Allvin said. “If it lasts 25 or 30 years, it should do everything except toast you in the morning.”
Making CCAs into complex, multi-mission aircraft will inevitably drive up costs, Allvin said, meaning the Air Force can only buy a limited number of them. ‘
Air Force officials have frequently discussed the need for CCAs to expand their manned combat aircraft base and provide what they call “affordable mass.” A smaller fleet of more expensive drone wingmen, as Allvin is trying to avoid, would make achieving that affordable mass goal harder to achieve.
Instead, Allvin envisions technology advancing quickly enough that a class of CCAs could be obsolete after a decade and ready to be replaced – or heavily updated with new technologies.
“That CCA won’t be as relevant, but it can be adaptable, and that’s why we’re building in the modularity,” Allvin said.
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has directed the service to make plans for a CCA fleet of about 1,000 drones that will fly alongside the service’s F-35A Joint Strike Fighter and the service’s planned Next Generation Air Dominance fighter. The missions that CCAs would perform will likely vary and include strike operations, intelligence gathering and reconnaissance, conducting electronic warfare, and serving as decoys.
Kendall also made affordability a requirement for the CCA program, saying each drone should cost a fraction of the price tag of an F-35.
In April, the Air Force announced that it had selected Anduril and General Atomics to further develop the designs for their CCA concepts and then build production-representative test aircraft.
During the event Thursday, Allvin noted the financial stresses facing the Air Force, including inflation and limited budgets.
“All this pressure is starting to weigh on us, and we have to ask the fundamental question: What does an effective Air Force look like in the future and how much of that depends on external resources?” Allvin said.
But when asked whether the service will be able to produce NGAD as planned, Allvin did not explicitly commit to the sixth-generation fighter.
“We’re going to have to make those choices, those decisions across the landscape,” Allvin said. “That will probably happen in the coming years.”
