Why All The Focus On Collaborative Combat Aircraft?
SHOW NOTES:
The Rincon Aerocast is a video podcast that is shot on location at the Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson, AZ. Rincon Aerospace managing partner Todd Tuthill choses a topic that touches the past, present, or future of the aerospace & defense industry.
This is the inaugural episode. It focuses on the latest developments in the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) Increment 1. It’s a competition between the Anduril Fury and the General Atomics Gambit CCAs.
Todd also gives us history lesson on the drone that launched from B-52s, the McDonnell Douglas Quail.
Rincon Aerocast host Todd Tuthill
Todd is the Managing Partner of Rincon Aerospace - A consulting company guiding aerospace companies to exceptional.
Todd is an aerospace executive and systems engineer with more than three decades of experience designing aircraft flight control systems
Find Todd on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddtuthill/
TRANSCRIPT:
I’m Todd Tuthill, Managing Partner at Rincon Aerospace. Welcome to the first episode of my new video podcast called the Rincon Aerocast.
I’ll use the Aerocast to present all things aerospace and defense. I’ll talk about the past, present, and future of aerospace.
I am fortunate to live near a world-class aerospace museum. The Pima Air & Space Museum. I plan to do several episodes from this museum.
Today I want to talk about Collaborative Combat Aircraft or CCAs - so why am I standing in front of a B-52?
When we think about CCAs or military drones that fly with fighter aircraft, we think about AI and the latest technology, and all of that is true, but the latest CCAs from Anduril and General Atomics will not be the first drones to fly with or protect manned aircraft.
B-52s like the one behind me once flew with their own drones like this one I’m standing beside. More on this drone later. Let’s talk about the latest CCAs.
The United States Air Force Next Generation Air Dominance initiative will deliver the Boeing F-47 - a manned fighter - but there is much more to NGAD than just the X-47.
In January 2024, the Air Force launched increment 1 of their NGAD Collaborative Combat Aircraft or CCA program by awarding contracts to five companies: the big three: Boeing, Lockheed, and Northrop Grumman, as well as General Atomics and a fairly new company called Anduril.
Three months later, the Air Force shocked the A&D industry by passing on the big three and awarding the build portion of CCA increment 1 to General Atomics and Anduril. The Air Force expects to take delivery of 100+ Increment 1 CCAs in the next few years.
All is not lost for the big three though. They continue to develop drones of their own, and all are expected to compete for CCA Increment 2. That’s a subject for another episode. Today we focus on the jets in Increment 1.
CCAs are unmanned semi-autonomous drones that will fly in swarms with manned aircraft. This will likely start with fifth-generation fighters like the F-22 and F-35, but the ultimate plan is to pair them with sixth-generation fighters like the F-47 or the Navy’s F/A-XX.
These CCAs will allow their manned counterparts to put sensors and weapons over the horizon vs just hanging under their wing.
Are these CCAs flying yet? How big are these CCAs? How do they compare to manned aircraft? Let’s take look.
Anduril’s CCA, the YFQ-44 Fury, completed its first flight on Oct 31, 2025. Just over a week ago as I am filming this video. It’s 20 feet long with a wing span of 17 feet. It has a max takeoff weight of 5000 lbs.
There was a full-scale model of a Fury on display at the Paris Airshow this summer. Here is a photo of me standing next to it. It is large for what we think of as a drone, but much smaller than a manned fighter.
Compare the Fury photo to me walking under the wing of an F-15. That F-15 is 3X longer with almost 3X the wing span. The F-15 has 13x the max take-off weight.
Even an F-16 like the one behind me has more than 8x the max takeoff weight of a Fury.
The General Atomics CCA is the YFQ-42 Gambit. Its first flight was August 27, 2025. As of the filming of this video, General Atomics has not released specifications of the jet, but I saw a full-scale model on display at this summer’s Paris Airshow. Here’s a photo I shot.
It is similar in size to the Fury, but I would say it has more internal payload and/or fuel capacity.
What is all this about? Why does the US war department want so many drones and CCAs? CCAs can carry weapons and sensors over the horizon while directed by their manned counterpart. Is that all CCAs are about?
Think about this: The USAF bought 2200 F-16s. They are not quite done buying F-15s. They will portably buy about 1200. They are planning to buy more than 1700 F-35s - but the Air Force bought just 187 F-22s - the jet NGAD was design to replace.
The US cannot afford to buy a thousand or more F-47s. The planned F-47 buy is about the same as F-22: 185 aircraft, but they will cost at least twice as much per copy vs the F-22.
185 aircraft can’t be all we get for the billions invested. That’s where the CCAs fit. The Air Force may buy as many as 2000 increment 2 CCAs. 10x the number of F-47s.
CCAs aren’t just a way to put sensors and weapons on the enemy with far less risk to human life. CCAs are also more cost-effective than manned fighters. They may carry a smaller payload but they are far cheaper to design, build, and operate than manned fighters.
What does this mean to you: If you’re a company trying to make your way into the CCA supply chain, you need a plan to work faster and cheaper than ever before.
The US defense market is not just driven by operational performance anymore. It also requires financial performance, very quick time to market, and scalability. Anduril went from clean sheet to first semi-autonomous flight - at the click of a button as they showed on their website - in just 556 days. Just 19 months - that is incredible!
To be a modern defense contractor you need to think more like an auto supplier and less like a defense company. We started next to the B-52. Let’s go back there and look at that drone.
We are back where we started at the B-52.
This is the ADM-20 Quail. It was launched from B-52s in the 1960s. It was designed as a RADAR and infrared decoy for the B-52. To enemy defenses, it looked like another B-52.
I’m calling it a drone - but technically it was a cruise missile with no energetic payload.
A B-52 would carry and launch two to four quails per mission. The idea was to swamp enemy defenses.
The Quail became operational in the early 1960s. It was retired in the late 1970s because RADAR technology had improved and made it no longer effective.
That’s all for today’s episode of the Rincon Aerocast. Please like and subscribe to this video cast, and follow me on LinkedIn for more content like this.
If you are looking to improve your leadership skills, I also have an audio podcast all about leadership called Rincon Horizons. Please check out my website for more information. It’s Rincon.Aero. RINCON.AERO
I’ll see you next time on the Rincon Aerocast.