US Air Force CCA programme to achieve multiple milestones in the coming months
FQ-42 Vengeance will have its first live-fire missile test “very soon”. (Photo: General Atomics)
The US Air Force is preparing to select mission-autonomy software, fire a missile from the FQ-42 Vengeance and test both CCA designs alongside crewed fighters at 2026 Emerald Flag.
The US Air Force (USAF) expects to reach several critical milestones in the short term with its Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) programme. Some of the marks include deploying the CCA platforms in Emerald Flag exercise 2026, conducting the first live-fire missile test of the FQ-42 Vengeance and picking a mission autonomy software supplier.
“We are getting close to our mission autonomy down select,” Brig Gen Timothy Helfrich, the USAF’s portfolio acquisition executive for fighters and advanced aircraft, said in a webinar conducted by the US think tank Mitchell Institute on 28 September.
Helfrich claimed that the purchase of the software
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