The Air Force secretary noted that the YFQ-42A was “truly lethal” and should put American adversaries on alert.
The U.S. Air Force’s Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program continues to make steady progress. According to manufacturer General Atomics, the second prototype of a Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) has entered the ground testing phase, a milestone for the service’s “loyal wingmen drone” concept. In a statement, president of General Atomics Aeronautics Systems said that “The YFQ-42A is an exciting next step for our company,” adding that “It reflects many years of partnership with the U.S. Air Force of advancing unmanned combat aviation for the United States and its allies around the world, and we’re excited to begin ground testing and move to first flight.” This announcement was accompanied by the debut of the first YFQ-42A in a hangar by Air Force secretary Gen. David Allvin. In a post published by on X, the Air Force secretary noted that the uncrewed weapon was “truly lethal” and should put American adversaries on alert.
The revealed CCA appears very similar to previous renderings and physical models put forth by General Atomics. As detailed by the manufacturer, the new drone prototype is heavily derived from the experimental XQ-67A UAV program. The service’s Off-Board Sensing Station program conceptualized the XQ-67A in 2024. Designed to function around a common “genus” that could be adapted to a variety of drone types, this innovative design is meant to facilitate the faster delivery of advanced UAVs in an era of greater power competition. Since the XQ-67A made its maiden flight more than one year ago, General Atomics is more confident in its similar CCA work. Based on the images provided, The War Zone detailed several notable characteristics featured by the drone. An infrared search and track sensor is likely located under the nose of the CCA, which would be used to locate stealthy targets in an air-to-air combat role. Additionally, The War Zone notes that an apparent forward-facing camera system featured on the CCA could be essential for situational awareness purposes.
An Overview of the CCA Program
A huge component of the Air Force’s NGAD program is the incorporation of these highly autonomous and lethal uncrewed aerial weapons. The CCAs are expected to fly alongside the service’s upcoming sixth-generation crewed fighter jets in order to extend the reach of the Air Force and conduct missions ranging from reconnaissance and intelligence to electronic warfare and strike operations. Former Air Force secretary Frank Kendall previously explained that the service intended to create mass with an abundance of more survivable and cheaper to produce UAVs: “The expectation is that these (unmanned) aircraft can be designed to be less survivable and less capable, but still bring an awful lot to the fight in a mixture that the enemy has a very hard time sorting out and dealing with.” He added: “You can even intentionally sacrifice some of them to draw fire, if you will, to make the enemy expose himself.” Back in 2024, the service first tasked General Atomics and Anduril to develop and test the initial CCA variants.
About the Author: Maya Carlin
Maya Carlin, National Security Writer with The National Interest, is an analyst with the Center for Security Policy and a former Anna Sobol Levy Fellow at IDC Herzliya in Israel. She has by-lines in many publications, including The National Interest, Jerusalem Post, and Times of Israel. You can follow her on Twitter: @MayaCarlin. Carlin has over 1,000 articles published over the last several years on various defense issues.
Image: DVIDS.
