In first, Air Force fires live shot off CCA wingman drone
LONDON — A US Air Force wingman drone for the first time “successfully” fired a live munition, an AMRAAM air-to-air missile, during a recent test, Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach revealed to Breaking Defense.
“It wasn’t just an AMRAAM that came off,” Wilsbach said in an exclusive interview today on the sidelines of the Global Air & Space Chiefs conference here, “it was tracking the target.”
Wilsbach declined to divulge more details of the test, citing operational security. But, he said the aircraft involved was Anduril’s YFQ-44A, which the Air Force previously revealed was the first of its Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) to carry an inert version of the AMRAAM. In a press release, the Air Force said the weapon was fired at a “digital target” over the Mojave Desert.
Though a selling point often cited for CCAs is their ability to fly with a great deal of autonomy, the Air Force stressed that any decision to fire weapons will have to be made by human operators.
The recent Anduril test fire “was more than a simple weapons release test — it demonstrated an end-to-end, beyond-line-of-sight strike against a simulated target,” Mark Shushnar, Anduril’s vice president of autonomous airpower, said in a statement to Breaking Defense.
“YFQ-44A took off from Edwards Air Force Base, our Lattice software ingested a target track, an operator tasked the aircraft to engage the target, and YFQ-44A fired an AIM-120 as instructed,” he added.
A similar test with the service’s other CCA drone, General Atomics’s YFQ-42A, is expected in the fall, according to an Air Force spokesperson. The YFQ-42A resumed flight testing in May, lifting a month-long grounding after a drone crashed in the California desert. (Outside the US, in December the Royal Australian Air Force used a Boeing-made MQ-28 Ghost Bat to strike a “fighter-class target drone” with its own AIM-120.)
“Firing weapons from any unmanned aircraft is a huge milestone. That’s something General Atomics pioneered and we’re known for, so we know what it means for everyone involved,” General Atomics spokesman C. Mark Brinkley told Breaking Defense, adding GA “remains on schedule to fire from the internal bay” of the company’s drone later this year and that “everyone is looking forward to showing more of what our aircraft can bring to the fight.”
News of the AMRAAM test comes on the heels of both CCA drones getting a greenlight in June to begin production. Anduril, Shield AI and RTX subsidiary Collins Aerospace are separately competing to provide the drones’ autonomous software.
The service hasn’t disclosed the cost of the program and has not said how many vehicles each of the two hardware providers will be contracted to build for through the first of three production lots. Still, in a briefing with reporters June 17, Air Force Col. Timothy Helfrich said the drones have achieved a goal of being one-third the cost of an F-35A, whose “average” flyway cost in its current production lot clocks in at around $83 million. (The Air Force measures flyaway price in then-year dollars, which are adjusted for inflation.)
Additionally, according to Air Force budget documents, the service is requesting roughly $1.4 billion to develop CCA drones in fiscal 2027, alongside nearly $1 billion for procurement.
Wilsbach said, “Things are going really well, and we’re excited and on track to get these in the hands of our airmen as soon as we can.”
The Air Force kicked off the CCA program under the Biden administration and is developing the drones in a successive series of “increments.” The Anduril and General Atomics drones are part of the first increment, and a second is underway with nine undisclosed vendors who were issued early development contracts, Breaking Defense previously reported. Air Force officials expect the drones to conduct a wide range of missions, from serving as missile trucks to conducting electronic attack and reconnaissance.
Back in May, lawmakers on the House Armed Services Committee adopted language in their version of the Pentagon’s annual defense policy bill that laid out concerns for future CCA designs. Forthcoming drones, they said, may require “aircraft with sufficient range, speed, and electrical power to potentially self-deploy from the continental United States and conduct varied missions for geographic combatant commanders.”
Such traits, lawmakers said, are “particularly valid” in a potential conflict with China considering the “risks” of operating in the first island chain of the Pacific where “Chinese long-range weapons” threaten US bases.
Asked about that legislative language, Wilsbach said CCA “likely will have to deploy from the United States” and “hop” through bases to reach a theater, but said the drones’ range will be sufficient to achieve that need.
“Ideally, you’d like them to be along the coasts” of the United States to ensure the drones are as close as possible to any potential theater, Wilsbach said. But ultimately, wherever they are based, they’ll be able to reach where they’re needed.
“That’s all completely doable,” he said.
