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An MQ-28A Ghost Bat at Woomera, South Australia, 5 September, 2025
The US Air Force’s ‘Collaborative Combat Aircraft’
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It began quietly, as an experiment in autonomy and networking. Now the US Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program has moved from concept sketches and laboratory demos into production-representative prototypes and flight tests, opening a new chapter in how air forces imagine mass, persistence and risk on the modern battlefield.
The CCA is not a single drone so much as a concept: affordable, semi-autonomous “loyal wingmen” that fly alongside crewed fighters, share sensor data, absorb risk, and multiply the combat power of a manned platform.
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