Earlier this month, the US Air Force announced a rather historic and important event for the service – namely that as part of the implementation of the so-called “faithful winged” CCA (Collaborative Combat Aircraft) program, two series of unmanned aerial vehicles were created – namely the YFQ-42A from General Atomics, as well as the YFQ-44A from Anduril.
These machines are actually the first generation of unmanned fighters and are quite loud in the US Air Force Announcedthat these aircraft will be “critical to providing air superiority for the Joint Forces in future conflicts.”
In their post, the US Air Force emphasizes that a standard structure was used to designate the machines, where Y means that the machines are prototypes, F defines the basic mission (Fighter – fighter), and Q – the type of machine, namely an unmanned aerial vehicle.
“Now we have two prototypes of the Collaborative Combat Aircraft,” said US Air Force Chief of Staff David Allwin, emphasizing that the path from “paper” to the first flight, which should take place this summer, was passed in less than a few years.
“Perhaps it is just symbolic, but we are telling the world that we are entering a new chapter of the air war. It means compatible combat aviation, it means human-machine interaction. We develop these capabilities thinking ‘mission first,'” Allwin says.
The YFQ-42 is a drone from the Gambit family from General Atomics, it is similar in configuration to the XA-67A, equipped with a single engine and has an internal weapons compartment. The company previously emphasized that the drone will have an affordable cost to saturate troops with a significant number of such drones.
YFQ-44
by Anduril
has an internal name Fury, and was originally developed by Blue Force Technologies
as an aggressor platform for conducting exercises, it was later adapted to the requirements of the CCA.