CCAs Can Take On Homeland Defense Role, General Atomics Says

AURORA, Colorado—While General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. is preparing for the first flight of its production-ready YFQ-42A collaborative combat aircraft (CCA), the company is looking ahead to other missions for the uncrewed system to increase its overall usability, starting at home.

The company laid out a new proposal for CCA to Aviation Week at the Air and Space Forces Association’s Air Warfare Symposium here recently, having the uncrewed systems standing by for homeland alert air defense missions instead of simply sitting in boxes waiting for the next war.

“We could ... scramble out, go in and escort somebody that’s kind of too close to our airspace,” GA-ASI President David Alexander says. “Those are missions that haven’t even been focused on yet.”

GA-ASI and Anduril are preparing to fly for the first time the respective YFQ-42A and YFQ-44A CCAs this summer as the U.S. Air Force plans to operate the systems by the end of the decade. CCA Increment 1 is designed to have the semi-autonomous aircraft accompany crewed fighters into combat, largely providing extra weapons and sensors to the fight.

The GA-ASI argument to expand the role to homeland defense says the CCAs can also take the place not only of expensive crewed fighters like F-22s, F-35s and F-15s that stand on homeland alert, but also with tankers and command and control aircraft. Additionally, uncrewed aircraft, if they crash, do not require personnel recovery crews and helicopters on standby to quickly pluck pilots from icy waters as quickly as possible.

“That mission up there, where if things go bad and it’s unmanned, it’s like some money in the water,” Alexander says. “I think that’s huge for day-to-day missions.”

On the symposium’s exposition floor, GA-ASI provided a scenario to outline its proposal based on real-world intercepts of aircraft like Russia’s Tupolev Tu-95 bomber. In this example, a Tu-95 launches from its base in eastern Russia and is tracked approaching Alaska’s air defense identification zone. About 3 hr. later as the bomber approaches the ADIZ, a single CCA takes off from King Salmon Airport in Alaska to intercept. Instead of at least two fighters, a tanker and a command-and-control aircraft like the E-3 Sentry, the CCA can go alone, GA-ASI argues. It can also take off on its own with the click of a mouse, as opposed to scrambling pilots from an alert facility.

When the CCA approaches the bomber, the communications would be the same as currently—only a U.S. crewmember would make contact using voice over internet protocol instead of a radio from the cockpit. GA-ASI even goes as far as to say a screen panel could be installed on the side of a CCA for communication, like how helicopter crews write on whiteboards to communicate to a pilot.

In the scenario, the bomber continues down the coast of Canada to the Pacific Northwest with a CCA escorting. Using autonomous control, the uncrewed system can be directed to fly at a position such as 2,000 ft. to the aft left of the bomber—and it will precisely stick to that point, GA-ASI argues. As the bomber comes toward Oregon and the CCA reaches the end of its range, another uncrewed system would launch from Portland International Airport to continue the escort.

Typically a bomber turns around off the coast of Southern California and makes the long trip back north. GA-ASI says its CCAs can be refueled and launched again in less than 40 min., so the one in Portland would launch again and finish the rest of the escort as the bomber returns home.

All told, in this scenario, two uncrewed systems would take a mission that regularly requires several fighters and support aircraft, GA-ASI contends. Using notional estimates—not specific figures for any actual GA-ASI systems—the uncrewed aircraft would burn just 8,656 lb. of fuel for the whole mission, as opposed to more than 1 million lb. for fighters, tankers and control aircraft under the current model. This represents more than $550,000 less in fuel cost per hour in this scenario, the company argues.

“We believe that more so than just buying CCA and putting them in a box, there are tremendous benefits to actually operating ... Our idea is to show the value of the platform,” says Scott Gilloon, the senior director for mission architecture at GA-ASI.

While the company’s scenario is focusing on homeland alert in Alaska, or over the North Pole or North Atlantic, it is not clear how an uncrewed system could take the entirety of homeland defense. For example, how a CCA would be able to escort a general aviation aircraft and assess its intent, a key part of how alert aircraft protect certain locations and enforce restricted airspace.

While GA-ASI is rolling out the proposal, Alexander says the company is “laser-focused” on executing the CCA Increment 1 requirement. Air Force officials say the first flight of the two contenders is expected this summer, though Alexander says his design has already passed that hurdle. The GA-ASI YFQ-42A is largely based on its XQ-67A Off-Board Sensing Station, which first flew in February 2024. The CCA design takes the OBSS, but focuses more on internal carriage of weapons and more angled wings for speed, though it is otherwise largely the same.

“I think everybody’s missing the point when they go, hey, when is your first flight?” Alexander argues. “And I always thought it was last year, February. Now we’re doing our first flight of our productionalized design and we’re going into mass production.”

Alexander says the GA-ASI CCA was designed from the beginning for large-scale production. The company with its other products topped out at producing eight and a half to nine aircraft per month, though as the MQ-9A line was shut down that has dropped to about three and a half per month. The company can “easily” get back to eight and a half per month, and go to 12 to 18 per month within its existing footprint, Alexander says.