Collaborative Combat Aircraft/ CCA

Definition

CCA is the U.S. Air Force's program of record for autonomous, attritable or exquisite uncrewed aircraft that team with NGAD, F-35, and F-22 to multiply sensors, shooters, and EW effects. Increment 1 vendors include General Atomics (YFQ-42A) and Anduril (YFQ-44A). Open standards (OMS, UCI, FACE), modular payloads, and government-owned autonomy reference architectures are central to the program's affordability and competition strategy.

Reference attributes

Lead service

U.S. Air Force

Increment 1 vendors

General Atomics, Anduril

Increment 1 designations

YFQ-42A, YFQ-44A

Mandated standards

OMS / UCI / FACE family

Related terms

• Loyal Wingman Concept
  Doctrinal pattern of pairing autonomous uncrewed aircraft with crewed lead.
• Open Mission Systems (OMS)
  U.S. Air Force government-owned interface standard for airborne mission systems.
• Universal Command and Control Interface (UCI)
  Government-owned C2 messaging standard for off-board control of air and space assets.
• Skyborg
  U.S. Air Force autonomy core program that seeded the Collaborative Combat Aircraft initiative.