How often does a stealth fighter become the quarterback for an entire fleet of autonomous combat aircraft? Not only a tactical upgrade, the US Air Force’s decision to make the F-22 Raptor the “threshold platform” for its Collaborative Combat Aircraft program is a strategic pivot that is bound to redefine the character of air combat for decades to come. The move reflects a switch toward hybrid warfare in which manned and unmanned assets operate in tight coordination to defeat increasingly sophisticated adversaries.
The announcement comes as the Air Force accelerates the pace on CCA development, with two prototypes now flying. While the Raptor will lead the integration, the long-term vision contemplates a multi-platform network that would include F-35s, F-15 variants, and the future F-47 sixth-generation fighter. The bottom line for defense technology professionals and aerospace analysts is that this is about survivability, scalability, and maintaining dominance in contested environments.
1. F-22 Raptor as the CCA Threshold Platform
The Air Force’s FY2026 budget funds F-22 modification to be compatible with CCA, making it the first operational fighter designed to coordinate missions with an autonomous system. Among these will be tablet-based control kits, cabling, software integration, and secure communications-leveraging the Raptor’s Inter-Flight Data Link for resilient, low-probability-of-intercept data exchange. Equipping the entire fleet of 143 combat-coded Raptors allows the fleet to provide direction to CCAs in high-threat environments without compromising stealth.
2. First 1 CCA Prototypes to Flight Test
General Atomics’ YFQ-42A and Anduril’s YFQ-44A have made their first flights in 2025, marking a critical transition from ground testing to operational evaluation. The YFQ-42A, based on its heritage with the XQ-67A OBSS program, features a modular ‘common chassis’ design, while the YFQ-44A places a significant emphasis on semi-autonomous flight from day one, with takeoff and landing executed via autonomy software. As Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said, these flights provide “hard data we need to shape requirements, reduce risk, and ensure the CCA program delivers combat capability on a pace and scale that keeps us ahead of the threat.”
3. Force Multiplication: Risk-Tolerant
The CCAs will be “risk-tolerant” assets with the capability to absorb threats that would otherwise threaten crewed fighters. Thus, their modular payload bays can host sensors, weapons, or electronic warfare suites, opening up everything from ISR to offensive strike missions. In so doing, the approach will enable the USAF to project power within dense air defense environments without exposing high-value manned platforms and hence multiply operational endurance and reach.
4. Lockheed Martin’s Integration Pod for F-35 and F-22
P cadre of F-35 pilots can now control up to eight CCAs from a pod developed by Lockheed Martin. Secure data exchange is provided through Link 16 and the stealthy Multifunction Advanced Data Link. The system can be adapted for the F-22, says chief executive Jim Taiclet, keeping both fifth-generation jets ahead of future capability integrations. While basic systems rely on little more than a tablet interface, Skunk Works is working on more organic cockpit solutions to drive down pilot workload in single-seat fighters.
5. Shield AI’s X-BAT and VTOL Advantage
Shield AI’s X-BAT, a vertical takeoff and landing stealth jet, hopes to change this calculus with runway independence and multi-role flexibility. Armor Harris, the SVP of Shield AI, thinks VTOL capability reduces vulnerabilities to runway attacks and reliance upon tankers in the Second Island Chain of the Pacific theater. Boasting a 2,000-nautical-mile range with thrust-vectoring nozzle and modular mission systems, X-BAT could fly from ships, remote bases, or even containerized platforms, enjoying deployment agility no conventional fighter could match.
6. F-47 Sixth-Generation Fighter as Future CCA Hub
The Boeing-built F-47, considered part of the NGAD program, will serve as a command-and-control hub for swarms of as many as 1,000 CCAs. The F-47 will complement or replace fifth-generation fighters in the late 2020s, with an adaptive-cycle engine, extreme stealth, and a combat radius of more than 1,000 nautical miles. The design will focus on dispersed operations, launching from rough fields to enable survivability in contested zones.
7. Agile Combat Employment and Rough-Field Capability
The Increment 1 CCAs will be the first aircraft designed from the ground up to align with the Air Force’s Agile Combat Employment doctrine. Features such as trailing-arm landing gear will support operations from short, degraded runways, expanding basing options. Such a capability will enable rapid, unpredictable deployments to austere locations and make adversary targeting more difficult while enhancing operational resilience.
8. Autonomy and Command Philosophy
The designs of Anduril’s YFQ-44A and Shield AI place heavy emphasis on autonomy, allowing CCAs to continue missions in communications-denied environments. Even as the USAF maintains that a human must always be “on the loop” for offensive kill decisions, defensive scenarios, such as protection of a carrier strike group, may consider CCA independent action within pre-defined engagement zones. This autonomy will reduce the pilots’ cognitive load and make missions seamless in contested electromagnetic environments.
9. Production Scale and Industrial Base Readiness
The Air Force wants at least 1,000 CCAs across several increments, with 100–150 in Increment 1. Meanwhile, Anduril is building its Ohio-based Arsenal-1 production facility, while Shield AI readies itself for mass production of the launch and recovery vehicles. Boeing’s Advanced Combat Aircraft Assembly Facility in St Louis stands ready to build both the F-47 and its possible naval derivatives, providing industrial capacity to meet simultaneous demands from both USAF and Navy.
The Air Force continues positioning the F-22 as the lead integration platform for CCAs and laying the operational and technological foundation it will need for a distributed, resilient, lethal network of combat airpower. The prototypes are flying, the autonomy is maturing, and industrial capacity scales as the service positions itself against peer adversaries with a force structure that fuses the strengths of manned stealth fighters and adaptable autonomous systems. It’s not an evolution about adding drones; it’s about reshaping the very architecture of air dominance.
