Air Force Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) Program End-to-End Assessment Report

Key Chapter Title List

1. From Promise to Program: An Overview of Collaborative Combat Aircraft
2. End-to-End Process Cycle: A Universal Framework
3. CCA Program Assessment
4. Ten Unanswered Questions
5. Executive Summary
6. Appendix A: Supporting Budget Data
7. List of Acronyms

Document Introduction

This report, authored by Travis Sharp, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), represents the first end-to-end, in-depth assessment of the U.S. Air Force's Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program. Facing increasingly intense military competition with China in the Indo-Pacific region and the quantitative challenges posed by its Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) systems, the U.S. Air Force introduced the "affordable mass" concept in 2023. This plan aims to procure approximately 1,000 CCAs as loyal wingmen for manned fighter aircraft, seeking to build a large-scale unmanned wingman fleet at a relatively low cost to enhance system combat effectiveness and survivability.

The report employs the author's original End-to-End Process Cycle (E2EPC) analytical framework, which breaks down the generation of new military capabilities into seven interrelated steps: Define the Problem, Generate Resources, Develop Capabilities, Prepare the Organization, Deploy Capabilities, Employ Capabilities, and Adjust Practices. Using this framework, the report systematically examines the overall progress of the CCA program since its inception. The assessment is based on six categories of evidence sources: public information, Air Force official briefings, confidential interviews with over 30 industry experts, a confidential questionnaire survey of 38 experts from the Department of Defense, industry, and think tanks, a historical case study of the Vietnam War-era AQM-34 Firebee drone, and an analysis of CCA employment, deployment, and sortie generation in a Taiwan Strait scenario.

The report's core findings reveal significant disparities in progress across different stages of the program. Notable progress has been made in defining the problem and generating resources. The U.S. Air Force has successfully framed the quantitative disadvantage faced by its manned fleet as a core challenge and established CCA as a promising solution, while also securing strong initial funding support from Congress. However, progress has been limited or moderate in the three steps of developing capabilities, deploying capabilities, and employing capabilities. While the Air Force has moved swiftly on technology prototyping, the definition of key mission roles (such as forward sensing, suppression of enemy air defenses, electronic warfare, etc.) remains vague and lacks clear trade-offs, hindering subsequent work on detailed design, logistics support, and operational concepts. Furthermore, there is a notable lack of publicly available details and apparent shortcomings regarding deployment issues such as CCA basing, sustainment, and cooperation with allies.

The report emphasizes two overarching macro-themes. First, technology is never enough. The success of CCA depends not only on advanced autonomous technology but equally on giving comparable emphasis to non-technical factors such as logistics support, base selection, organizational integration, and tactical doctrine. Second, trade-offs: now, in the future, forever. There is no one-size-fits-all CCA design suitable for all scenarios. In specific scenarios like a Taiwan Strait conflict, CCAs designed for persistent presence missions versus those for "quick-in, quick-out" strike missions will face vastly different design trade-offs regarding survivability, range, cost, and support requirements. The Air Force must make clear, mission-based decisions and communicate them widely as soon as possible.

Despite the challenges, the report maintains a cautiously optimistic view, believing the Air Force has laid a solid foundation for CCA's success. The CCA program enjoys extraordinary implicit political support due to its symbolic significance—it is seen as a hope for breaking the deadlock of the Department of Defense's traditional acquisition model. The report concludes by posing ten unanswered key questions concerning the relationship between CCAs and manned aircraft, organizational structure, personnel, and historical lessons, pointing the way for the program's future planning and debate. This assessment aims to provide policymakers, analysts, and relevant professionals with a comprehensive and rigorous benchmark for understanding the true status and future path of this key program that may reshape the landscape of future air warfare.