Can defence manufacturers deliver a pilotless combat jet that is so cheap it can be considered disposable?
The US Air Force seems to think so – and is betting much of its future on the concept.
Known as Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCAs) within the Pentagon, air force leaders think the autonomous, lethally armed jets under development will be the solution to the major challenge currently facing military planners in Western capitals: countering an enemy armed with vast quantities of long-range, precision munitions.
Western air forces have traditionally based their combat power around manned fighters and bombers, which penetrate enemy territory to destroy opposing aircraft and air defences to establish air superiority – and subsequently pound enemy ground forces from above.
However, the increasing sophistication of modern anti-aircraft systems, combined with the need to defend against swarms of low-cost cruise missiles and lethal drones, has turned that model upside down.
Advanced strike fighters and bombers are slow to produce and horrendously expensive – so much so that the US Air Force is rethinking its plans for a new sixth-generation fighter after the price of each aircraft reached more than double that of a Lockheed Martin F-35 fifth-generation jet.
Instead, the service wants to focus industry in the opposite direction. Rather than building a massively capable and correspondingly expensive platform that can only be fielded in limited quantities, the air force wants large numbers of less-capable CCAs that can be acquired at a fraction of the cost.
Two firms – Anduril and General Atomics – are under contract to deliver the first CCA prototypes, which air force secretary Frank Kendall says will fly within the next year.
With a sufficiently low enough price, such vehicles could essentially be considered disposable – what the air force calls “attritable” – in the same way missiles are meant to be fired only once.
But at least one high profile figure in the defence industry is sceptical of the concept – particularly the claim that an aircraft can be both sophisticated enough to be effective on the battlefield and cheap enough to be attritable.
“You’ve got to find something that is actually executing the mission, but not costing the national treasury on the first day of the war, when you lose most of your aircraft,” says John Clark, general manager of Lockheed Martin’s famous advanced development programmes division – more commonly known as Skunk Works.
Clark spoke to FlightGlobal at the annual Air & Space Forces Association (AFA) conference in September.
Just how much the air force will pay for CCAs remains uncertain. Older guided missiles like Raytheon’s AMRAAM cost the Pentagon under $1 million per unit, while newer cruise missiles and more-powerful air-to-air weapons like the Standard Missile-6 cost $3-4 million, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
By contrast, a mature crewed fighter like the Lockheed Martin F-16 carries a price tag of around $60 million – far too costly to be considered attritable.
More survivable fighters such as the F-35 are even more expensive, with the Pentagon currently paying between $80 million and $110 million, depending on variant.
Getting that figure down will likely involve a significant trade-off in survivability, Clark argues. However, the new CCAs will still need to be sophisticated enough to communicate with battlefield networks and carry multiple weapons and sensors, as air force leaders say the first examples will serve as air-to-air combat vehicles.
Striking a balance between affordability and capability could prove a challenge, the Skunk Works chief says.
“If you’re not going to have high levels of survivability, and you know it’s likely going to get shot, then it probably means that you need to drive your cost way, way down,” notes Clark.
As an example, he suggests a CCA with a unit price of $15-20 million, with an expected combat loss rate of 80%.
“How many airplanes am I willing to spend that sort of money on before that’s a losing proposition financially as a nation?” Clark proposes hypothetically.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the head of Skunk Works – famous for developing stealth technology and the trailblazing F-117 Nighthawk low-observable fighter bomber – is more inclined toward survivability than being expendable.
Clark reveals this was the basis for Lockheed’s initial CCA bid, and likely why the experienced fighter manufacturer was passed over in favour of two non-traditional firms.
“Our increment one offering had higher levels of stealth than were necessary in the requirements because of the operational analysis conviction of building something that actually had value to the air force over the long haul,” Clark says.
In hindsight, he says its clear the service “isn’t valuing survivability right now”.
“So we gold plated something that they didn’t need gold plated,” he adds.
The air force is in the process of developing requirements for the second round of CCA development, which secretary Kendall expects to release in the coming months.
While Clark says Lockheed will shift its focus more toward an expendable aircraft for its next CCA proposal, he predicts the air force’s expectations for its autonomous fighter jets will continue to grow, with the service seeking to add more capability to each iteration of development.
If that bears out, it may drive up delivery costs and undercut the concept. Other industry executives appear to share Clark’s outlook .
“My prediction is that the air force is going to want more, not less, from CCAs,” says Chris Flynn, vice-president of military development programmes at engine maker Pratt & Whitney (P&W).
Flynn also spoke at the AFA conference in September, discussing future propulsion initiatives, both for CCAs and sixth-generation fighters.
He predicts interest in onboard artificial intelligence will drive need for more-capable engines that can produce more electrical power.
“They’re going to be sucking all kinds of power, they need cooling,” Flynn says. “I think the engines are going to expand.”
The earliest CCA prototypes are to be single-engined jets, likely powered by a commercially available business jet engine, in an effort to keep costs down. But propulsion suppliers already have new systems in the works, designed specifically for the attrition strategy.
Both GE Aerospace and P&W are developing small engines with an eye toward rapid production and a price low enough to be considered disposable. GE Aerospace is also partnering with autonomous aircraft designer Kratos on a powerplant specifically aimed at CCA-type vehicles.
“I agree there is always going to be appetite for more,” says Michael Gregg, director of aerospace systems at the Air Force Research Laboratory.
He says with the CCA initiative, the USAF is trying to shift its procurement model toward regular bursts of short-term improvement, rather than paying for the sustainment of an aircraft or weapon system meant to last decades.
“We want to pay to innovate, not to keep something around forever,” Gregg notes.
Despite the current focus on cost control, history supports the assertion that expectations for CCAs will likely expand.
The Pentagon has repeatedly increased the capability of systems onboard the Lockheed Martin F-35 stealth fighter, to the point where the jet is now exceeding design standards for electrical power and cooling – necessitating a costly engine upgrade programme for an already expensive aircraft.
Whether the air force can avoid that outcome on its nascent CCA programme remains to be seen. Notably, the service passed over the Kratos XQ-58 Valkyrie for the increment one contract – a design so oriented toward being cheap and expendable that it does not yet include landing gear.
While the initial CCA models will be oriented toward air-to-air combat, Kendall says future designs will likely be capable of air-to-ground strikes. More specialised functions such as aerial refuelling and electronic attack have also been suggested, meaning CCAs are likely to grow more complex, rather than less, as the new class of aircraft evolve.
