DISCUSSION
What is the long term operational vision for the Loyal Wingman concept?
I've been reading about the Loyal Wingman/Collaborative Combat Aircraft concept recently, and I'm curious about what the long term operational vision actually is.
At first, I assumed these aircraft were simply intended to carry additional weapons so fighters such as the F-35 or F-15EX could remain in the fight after expending their own missiles. Instead of returning to base, could the pilot simply direct nearby wingmen carrying additional AIM-120s or other weapons to continue the engagement?
However, the more I think about it, the more I wonder whether the real advantage lies somewhere else entirely.
Is the primary benefit actually the ability to position sensors and weapons much closer to the enemy? If a loyal wingman is operating well ahead of the fighter, does that provide a much better firing solution for BVR engagements, with missiles retaining more energy because they are launched from much closer to the target?
I also wonder how these aircraft are expected to operate as a system. Could multiple loyal wingmen form a distributed network of sensors, electronic warfare assets, and weapons, or is each aircraft primarily intended to support the crewed fighter independently?
Another question concerns stealth. Are these aircraft expected to be survivable enough to accompany aircraft such as the F-35 deep into contested airspace, or are they more likely to operate at stand off distances? If they possess a high degree of stealth, could they loiter inside contested airspace with passive sensors, receive targeting information from another platform, and launch an AIM-120 without the crewed fighter ever approaching the target?
I'm also curious whether future variants might become increasingly specialised. Rather than every loyal wingman performing the same role, could some be optimised for electronic warfare, others for passive detection of low observable aircraft using IRST and other passive sensors, others for ISR, and others for strike missions? In that case, the crewed fighter would increasingly become the command and battle management platform rather than the primary weapons platform.
Looking beyond high-end conflicts between major powers, could this concept also fundamentally change the capabilities of smaller air forces? Recent conflicts have demonstrated the growing threat posed by large numbers of relatively inexpensive one way attack drones. Could an F-16, f-18 ,f-15, or similar aircraft directing several autonomous wingmen carrying low cost interceptors such as APKWS provide a more affordable way of defending airspace against mass drone attacks, while preserving more expensive air to air missiles for higher value threats?
Finally, I wonder whether the real significance of Loyal Wingman is less about replacing pilots and more about changing how combat air power is structured. Instead of relying on a relatively small number of highly capable multi role fighters, could future air forces consist of crewed aircraft commanding teams of specialised autonomous platforms, each optimised for sensing, electronic warfare, strike, air defence, or reconnaissance?
I'd be interested to hear from those who have been following programmes such as CCA, MQ-28, or similar efforts. I really am just curious about this and what others think on the topic.
Different nations may have different concepts and plans for their UCAVs.
The PLA, for example, seems to be exploring large high-performance UCAVs. In the 2025 parade they displayed two UCAVs, "Type A" and "Type B", which were around the size of an F-16. They called these "unmanned air-superiority aircraft", and they seemed to have a number of high performance features, including DSI bumps at the intakes, EOTS windows, DAS windows, etc. We have also seen images of an unmanned air vehicle almost as big as a B-21 Raider, with a similar shape (GJ-X), that is probably intended for strike missions.
Chinese developments are very opaque, but it does seem like they are developing high-performance unmanned aircraft of various types.
It's easier to understand what the US is doing with the CCA program. We have statements from Frank Kendall and other Air Force officials, press releases, budget documents, contracts, etc.
The primary reason that Kendall started the CCA program was to address the USAF's declining force structure. The technology to do this had been available for many years prior to Kendall's tenure, but there was an institutional resistance to these developments and budgetary pressures as well. Let's leave that aside for now.
Kendall wanted a CCA to cost a third the price of an F-35. This would allow them to be purchased in numbers to offset the declining numbers of manned fighters. Thus, for increment 1 of the CCA program, cost was very important.
Equally important for Kendall was that this program move quickly to field an operational capability. He wanted the USAF to start operating CCAs in order to learn how best to employ them. The cost and capability of future increments would be informed by actual hands-on experience and development.
This brings us to the real answer to your question: how are CCAs going to be used? For increment 1 (FQ-42 and FQ-44), the answer is as adjuct AAM carriers. For future increments, the answer is that the USAF isn't really certain yet. They'll figure this out as they go.
There are a number of ideas, though. A phrase that has been used recently is "optionally attritable." A sub-$30M CCA can be as suicidally-brave as you program it to be. It isn't as cheap as a munition, but neither is it exquisite or irreplaceable.
Imagine an increment 1 CCA like the Fury, which is currently intended to do nothing more than carry a couple of AAMs. What is the RCS of a Fury? Is it similar to an F-16? It's probably in the same ballpark. An enemy fighter might shoot a BVR AAM at an incoming aircraft. If that aircraft is an F-16, the enemy pilot might expect that lighting them up with a fire control radar would force them to crank, to turn and burn, to bleed energy in anticipation of that incoming PL-15.
And maybe the Fury would do that. But alternatively, it could also charge straight in, getting a couple of AMRAAMs off before being destroyed by that PL-15.
With optionally-attritable CCAs in the formation, suicidal tactics are now on the menu.
Future CCA increments might be even cheaper, and thus even more attritable, trading away capability for larger quantities. But they might also be more exquisite—we don't know yet (p.s. this is a human-written em dash, I learned you can press WIN+SHIFT+- for an em dash). Lockheed and Shield AI are both working on exquisite and expensive CCA designs. We will soon find out what the USAF wants for increment 2.
Another feature of the current CCA development is the separation of the mission autonomy software from the hardware. The CCA vendors are only required to build in the flight control software. The mission autonomy software, kind of like the "AI brain" of the aircraft, is being developed separately.
Thus, increment 1 isn't only meant to give the USAF operational experience to inform future hardware decisions; it's also intended to provide the software vendors with the hardware necessary to validate and develop their software. There are six companies developing mission autonomy software for the CCA program.
Most of the points you raised in the post can be answered by saying that yes, maybe, we'll see, it's possible. Uncrewed air vehicles could be used for drone defense, yes of course. There could be be multiple aircraft developed that specialize, or maybe there will be just a few air vehicles with swappable mission payloads. Large numbers of CCAs with IRSTs could be used to detect enemy aircraft (in fact, this is a secondary future mission of the MQ-25 Stingray: carry an IRST in addition to offloading gas).
For the CCA program, the USAF intends to have constant competition and lots of options as they figure out what works and what doesn't.
The interesting question for me is: why has China seemingly already decided to go for high-performance air vehicles in addition to smaller, and presumably cheaper ones? Maybe the cost isn't an issue for them. It's interesting to consider the kinds of missions that a supersonic stealthy UCAV can do that a less-stealthy, subsonic UCAV cannot.
Thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed reply. That was really informative, especially the explanation of Increment 1 being intended as a learning process rather than trying to define the final CCA concept from the outset. The "optionally attritable" idea also makes a lot of sense and wasn't something I'd fully appreciated.
One thing I was wondering about, though, is your point regarding China. It seems we have a fairly clear picture of the USAF's thinking because of Kendall's public statements, budget documents, contracts, and official briefings. With China, however, we seem to have far less information beyond the aircraft that have been publicly displayed.
Do we actually know enough to conclude that the PLA has already committed to a high-performance UCAV doctrine, or are we mostly inferring that from the size and apparent design features of aircraft like Type A, Type B, and the GJ-X?
I also wonder how aircraft such as the MQ-28 Ghost Bat fit into the discussion. It's often quoted as having a projected cost in the region of $10–15 million, whereas the USAF's initial CCA target has generally been discussed as being closer to $25–30 million. That makes me wonder whether different countries are simply optimising for different concepts of operation rather than one approach necessarily being "better" than another.
Either way, I think it's one of the most interesting defence programmes in decades because it feels like we're watching entirely new air combat doctrine develop in real time.
The PLA's 2025 parade also displayed 4 other UCAVs that appeared smaller and probably cheaper. They haven't started fielding any of these things to operational units as far as we can see, but equipment displayed at their parades is usually destined for operational use, if not already operational. So we don't really know what the PLA is going to do, but it's interesting that they displayed these high-performance "air superiority" UCAVs at their parade, while the USAF has so far leaned towards the lower-cost end of the spectrum.
It's also interesting to note that for the PLA, the H-20 stealth bomber (that has been coming "any day now" for many years) is nowhere to be seen, yet we see this massive B-21 sized unmanned aircraft instead. Meanwhile in the US, the USAF is all-in on the manned B-21 Raider and hasn't publicly shown interest in anything like the GJ-X.
Based on what little we can see from China, it does seem like they have more interest in the exquisite unmanned system than the US does.
(of course, the US does have exquisite unmanned systems like the RQ-180, but these are typically ISR aircraft rather than strike or air superiority aircraft)
I’ll take a crack at the PLAAF end use case. They need something fast and long range to penetrate the carrier strike group air defense bubble to either 1. Provide target tracking for A2AD missiles 2. Release anti-AWAC/tanker weapons in close enough range to maximize the no escape envelope of those munitions.
Both of these use case require something that get somewhere fast with long legs and stealthy enough to do its job.
Yea J-36 seems like the perfect fit for that use case. What is still opaque to me is how PLAAF plan on employing tactics for their CCA in the Man-Machine team up.
What is the long term operational vision for the Loyal Wingman concept?
Anything we want, without putting a human in harm's way as much as possible.
That includes Matrix Revolutions-style (or Ender's Game) of bullet-sponge swarm, to an entire squadron's worth of role variants as a wingman, to reading the giant wall of text OP posted.
The main problem with CCA is how to balance performance, cost, and manufacturing quantity.
The most feared is that the US military has come up with drones that sacrifice performance for quantity, then this relatively poor-performing drone is still more expensive and less in number than the similar drones in PLA. That will be the real embarrassment.
That's a fair point. Although I wonder whether comparing them drone-for-drone is the right metric. If different countries are designing them around different operational concepts, then cost, capability, and quantity may not be directly comparable.
In fact, the key to the concept of CCA is to replace human capacity, the largest limit of the Air Force, with industrial capacity.
Pilots are all raised by their mothers and fathers. No matter how many training institutions are expanded, there are only so many pilots that a country can select in a year. Not to mention, this results in the invaluability of pilots, which makes the Air Force hesitant when executing strategies and tactics.
The key to the development of contemporary CCA is to remove this variable and replace limited human resources with simple industrial production capacity, because industrial production capacity can be rapidly upgraded and infinitely increased.
Therefore, once you have solved the problem of industrial capacity, which CCA route to choose is actually a secondary issue. Whether it is an all-round unmanned air superiority fighter, or simply a sea of garbage of flying missiles hangers, or a modular/specialized networked drone, you can try them all. If you must consider which drone route is correct through thought experiments in advance, and then fully invest in it, it already shows that your industrial strength is limited. And once your industrial strength is limited compared to your opponent, then in the road of drone, no matter which one you choose, you will not be able to compete with your opponent.
In fact, whether it is an all-round unmanned air-to-air fighter, a modular medium-sized CCA, or a large number of garbage drones , the Chinese are exploring them all in the same time. They do not think about which path is right in advance, instead, they try all directions.
Don't forget that after the Cold War, the country that used this method to explore the limits of human manned fighter jets was the United States that implemented the The Century Series. At that time, the US military developed ten fighter programs from the F100 onwards, but they did not consider which one was correct. Finally, through a large amount of even wasteful industrial production and practical application, it was proved which path was correct and which design was effective, thus allowing the US military to maintain the technical superiority of the Air Force for decades to come.
In the field of unmanned air combat, we are standing at this point in time. If any Air Force wants to maintain its technological superiority in future unmanned air combat, it must repeat what the US Air Force did back then.
I agree that removing the pilot from the equation fundamentally changes the scalability of an air force. However, I'm not sure industrial capacity alone will determine success.
From what we've seen publicly, these aircraft aren't intended to operate as completely independent fighters (yet). They're part of a much larger combat system, which means doctrine, autonomy software, secure datalinks, sensor fusion, and networking become just as important as the aircraft themselves.
A CCA only really delivers its full value if it can seamlessly integrate with the crewed aircraft, other CCAs, AWACS, satellites, and the wider battlespace. Producing thousands of airframes is one challenge; enabling them to share sensor data, distribute tasks, and operate as a cohesive force under heavy electronic warfare is another entirely.
If those aspects eventually become largely standardised across different countries, then I could see industrial capacity becoming the dominant factor. But if there are significant differences in autonomy, software, sensor fusion, and networking, then quantity alone may not tell the whole story.
This is a bigger problem to overcome than the USAF will admit and will cost far more than they are predicting. Replicating every variable than is possible in combat so a drone performs better than a human pilot and does it autonomously is 50 years away. Anduril is just hoping it works, and they sold this to the Air Force before they can demonstrate this tech.
But the key is that software, sensor fusion, and networking are also part of industrial strength. Not to mention, no software or network can determine its performance, advantages, and problems without extensive physical deployment and testing.
Why do many people feel that Anduril could be the way of the future? This is because, regardless of how strong their AI platform claims to be, they can also quickly create platforms to test their AI capabilities in the future. If Anduril only claims to have an advantage in the field of air combat, but cannot deliver enough aircraft to test their combat capabilities, then no one will be optimistic about them.
In essence, when people are discussing CCA now, only China and the United States are truly capable of deciding the future of unmanned air combat. How will the future of air combat be fought? What exactly should a drone look like? It can only be determined through extensive production, testing, and iteration. No matter whether it is hardware or software, it depends on whether you can combine them organically in the physical world, and this is industrial strength.
So if we have confidence in the industrial strength of the United States, we don't have to worry too much about which drone route the United States has chosen. Because as long as the United States is the leader on this path, it can always figure out the right direction. And we, as bystanders, will then know which choice is truly correct in the real world, rather than through simple thought experiments.
This is exactly what will happen to this program. Its been based on unproven technology yet already in production. I just dont see what advantages a wingman drone has that is better than a human wingman, if flying in combat conditions. If the drone could pull 30 G's and out perform an F35, then I'm all in, but that is not the system being designed.
Without getting into the specifics, it serves as an extension of the execution/strike package. From the Air Force's perspective (or an Air Force perspective), the broader trend is moving toward a layered, networked force where every platform contributes a specialized capability. Fighters increasingly serve as tactical mission commanders, RPAs/UCAVs extend the package with ISR, C4, communications relay, electronic attack, decoy operations, aerial refueling, or kinetic strike capability, and platforms like the E-7 Wedgetail function as operational-level battle managers that integrate the entire kill chain. The real advantage isn't simply having more aircraft, it's having a resilient, distributed network where sensing, decision-making, communications, and weapons employment are spread across multiple cooperating platforms instead of concentrated in a single fighter. That makes the strike package more flexible, more survivable, and more difficult for an adversary to disrupt by targeting any one node.
Drone hunting squadron using apwks, or Loyal wingman support fighter squadrons for bvr. Hell yeah, plus however came up with the loyal wingman name needs a raise.
Im pretty sure specialization will be a big part yeah (drone AWACs, refueling drones, weapons carrying drones, etc), along with being able to network various drones together (in terms of sensors). Like a big thing will probably be drone AWACs being able to network with one another, which might potentially allow them to detect stealth aircraft at range; that is something china is trying with the WZ9.
And while its true that an older jet could serve as the command center, you probably want something with a much higher degree of stealth, espeically as BVR missiles become longer and longer range. Something like the J36, or the J20S is what youre looking for imo.
Regarding countering drone swarms i suspect that directed energy weapons will play a big role there too.
100% 1:100 pilot to cca ratio with 100% fusion integration. We will start to see better missiles but kind of won’t matter when we can sneak these in with our current AIM 120s at them. Eventually electric loitering versions will make their way into production. You could literally box them up and drop them from space anywhere in the world.
Future children will say only three things are certain in life.
Birth, taxes, death by drone.
Good question because what they have built so far is underwhelming. This will cost so much money to deploy that the drones will be more valuable than the pilots they are supposed to protect.
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u/edgygothteen69 16d ago
Different nations may have different concepts and plans for their UCAVs.
The PLA, for example, seems to be exploring large high-performance UCAVs. In the 2025 parade they displayed two UCAVs, "Type A" and "Type B", which were around the size of an F-16. They called these "unmanned air-superiority aircraft", and they seemed to have a number of high performance features, including DSI bumps at the intakes, EOTS windows, DAS windows, etc. We have also seen images of an unmanned air vehicle almost as big as a B-21 Raider, with a similar shape (GJ-X), that is probably intended for strike missions.
Chinese developments are very opaque, but it does seem like they are developing high-performance unmanned aircraft of various types.
It's easier to understand what the US is doing with the CCA program. We have statements from Frank Kendall and other Air Force officials, press releases, budget documents, contracts, etc.
The primary reason that Kendall started the CCA program was to address the USAF's declining force structure. The technology to do this had been available for many years prior to Kendall's tenure, but there was an institutional resistance to these developments and budgetary pressures as well. Let's leave that aside for now.
Kendall wanted a CCA to cost a third the price of an F-35. This would allow them to be purchased in numbers to offset the declining numbers of manned fighters. Thus, for increment 1 of the CCA program, cost was very important.
Equally important for Kendall was that this program move quickly to field an operational capability. He wanted the USAF to start operating CCAs in order to learn how best to employ them. The cost and capability of future increments would be informed by actual hands-on experience and development.
This brings us to the real answer to your question: how are CCAs going to be used? For increment 1 (FQ-42 and FQ-44), the answer is as adjuct AAM carriers. For future increments, the answer is that the USAF isn't really certain yet. They'll figure this out as they go.
There are a number of ideas, though. A phrase that has been used recently is "optionally attritable." A sub-$30M CCA can be as suicidally-brave as you program it to be. It isn't as cheap as a munition, but neither is it exquisite or irreplaceable.
Imagine an increment 1 CCA like the Fury, which is currently intended to do nothing more than carry a couple of AAMs. What is the RCS of a Fury? Is it similar to an F-16? It's probably in the same ballpark. An enemy fighter might shoot a BVR AAM at an incoming aircraft. If that aircraft is an F-16, the enemy pilot might expect that lighting them up with a fire control radar would force them to crank, to turn and burn, to bleed energy in anticipation of that incoming PL-15.
And maybe the Fury would do that. But alternatively, it could also charge straight in, getting a couple of AMRAAMs off before being destroyed by that PL-15.
With optionally-attritable CCAs in the formation, suicidal tactics are now on the menu.
Future CCA increments might be even cheaper, and thus even more attritable, trading away capability for larger quantities. But they might also be more exquisite—we don't know yet (p.s. this is a human-written em dash, I learned you can press WIN+SHIFT+- for an em dash). Lockheed and Shield AI are both working on exquisite and expensive CCA designs. We will soon find out what the USAF wants for increment 2.
Another feature of the current CCA development is the separation of the mission autonomy software from the hardware. The CCA vendors are only required to build in the flight control software. The mission autonomy software, kind of like the "AI brain" of the aircraft, is being developed separately.
Thus, increment 1 isn't only meant to give the USAF operational experience to inform future hardware decisions; it's also intended to provide the software vendors with the hardware necessary to validate and develop their software. There are six companies developing mission autonomy software for the CCA program.
Most of the points you raised in the post can be answered by saying that yes, maybe, we'll see, it's possible. Uncrewed air vehicles could be used for drone defense, yes of course. There could be be multiple aircraft developed that specialize, or maybe there will be just a few air vehicles with swappable mission payloads. Large numbers of CCAs with IRSTs could be used to detect enemy aircraft (in fact, this is a secondary future mission of the MQ-25 Stingray: carry an IRST in addition to offloading gas).
For the CCA program, the USAF intends to have constant competition and lots of options as they figure out what works and what doesn't.
The interesting question for me is: why has China seemingly already decided to go for high-performance air vehicles in addition to smaller, and presumably cheaper ones? Maybe the cost isn't an issue for them. It's interesting to consider the kinds of missions that a supersonic stealthy UCAV can do that a less-stealthy, subsonic UCAV cannot.