The State of Collaborative Combat Aircraft Across the U.S. Services

Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), the Air Force’s autonomous wingman program, had an eventful year in 2025. The program down selected in increment 1, and finalists had began to publicly announce prototype testing. Meanwhile, both the Navy and Marines have joined the Air Force in establishing CCA programs, and 2026 is expected to be an exciting year for the respective service branches’ CCA programs.

In late 2024, IDGA published an article highlighting progress made on CCA that year. Now, nearly a year later, we are here to take on that same endeavor. This article will highlight everything you might have missed over the past year of CCA, as well as dive into progress on the Navy’s own CCA program.

IDGA’s Next Gen UAS Summit will bring together the drone community, including members of the U.S. Military working on armed force’s CCA programs. The two-day summit, taking place June 23-24 in Washington D.C., will include a range of discussions from the military’s drone dominance initiative, to R&D directives the military is taking to advance UAS capabilities, and much more.