The US Air Force’s first loyal wingman drones are about to take flight, testing whether prototypes can become mass airpower.

Air and Space Forces Magazine reported that the service is poised to conduct the first flight tests of its Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) prototypes, with sources confirming that Anduril Industries’ YQ-44A Fury and General Atomics’ YFQ-42A are “basically ready to go” and expected to fly imminently, possibly during the week of August 25.

The milestone marks the US Department of Defense’s (DoD) effort to field autonomous wingmen capable of teaming with F-22s and F-35s to bolster air superiority in contested environments. The aircraft, which have undergone ground and taxi trials since May at facilities in California, remain tightly shielded from media access, with only post-flight imagery anticipated.

The CCA program envisions up to 1,000 drones priced at around US$30 million each, a concept of “affordable mass” meant to sustain large-scale air battles. Congress has pressed for accelerated development, with the House Armed Services Committee urging full-scale production once demonstrations prove successful. The fiscal 2026 budget allocates $804 million for the program, with projections surpassing $3 billion annually by 2028.

Travis Sharp has examined how these drones might be employed in a Taiwan contingency. In an April 2025 report by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), Sharp suggested that the US Air Force could launch 500 CCAs from Japan and the Philippines alongside manned fighters.

He outlined two models: rapid-return strikes that maximize missile launches but strain logistics, and loitering missions that extend sensing and jamming but reduce sortie rates.

Sharp noted that concentrated basing improves throughput but risks exposure to Chinese missile salvos while dispersed basing increases survivability but dilutes operational tempo. He cautioned that attrition could erase the fleet in weeks, making sustainability a central dilemma.

Placing those ideas in a broader framework, Eric Rosenbach and others in a January 2025 Belfer Center report note that loyal wingmen developed under the US DoD’s Replicator initiative are designed for denied electronic environments, which complicates Chinese targeting and reduces risks to US personnel.

They judged fully autonomous systems to be five years away but said semi-autonomous drones could already add surveillance, jamming and precision strikes, boosting deterrence.

Yet vulnerabilities remain. In a February 2025 interview with the Hudson Institute, Major General Joseph Kunkel stressed that the greatest challenge to integrating autonomy and artificial intelligence (AI) into the US Air Force’s Force Design is not the technology itself, but rather how it is integrated into broader systems.

He noted that while autonomy, AI and all-domain sensing are “really, really important,” combat success will depend less on individual platforms and more on system-level integration, particularly how AI is woven into sensing, decision-making and mission threads.

Kunkel emphasized that the “magic happens” when asymmetric, long-range and core capabilities are combined into a mission fabric, underscoring that integration—not isolated technological advances—is the real hurdle.

Furthermore, in a RAND report published this month, Shanshan Mei noted that Chinese analysts have identified the “loyal wingman” concept as vulnerable to electromagnetic disruption, cyberattacks and data corruption, particularly given its reliance on distributed networks.

She cited People’s Liberation Army (PLA) writings suggesting that manned-unmanned teaming could be cracked by isolating nodes, corrupting data flows or overwhelming systems with information overload. Without hardened spectrum defenses and standardized protocols, Mei warned, CCAs could quickly degrade under PLA countermeasures.

To offset such risks, J Michael Dahm argued in a July 2025 article in Air and Space Forces Magazine that the US intends to employ CCAs within a Disaggregated Collaborative Air Operations (DCAO) framework. Dahm says this approach would allow fifth-generation fighters to act as autonomous command hubs, directing CCAs and legacy jets through low-emission communications.

By minimizing network dependence and decentralizing control, Dahm said, the US aims to blunt Chinese information warfare while keeping decision-making at the tactical edge. In this framework, he says CCAs could still strike and jam when disconnected, frustrating PLA attempts to paralyze networks.

Still, questions remain about expectations. Grant Georgulis warned in a July 2025 Air and Space Forces Magazine piece that CCAs should not be conflated with the low-cost drones that dominate ground battles in Ukraine but lack relevance in terms of air superiority.

The “drone hype fallacy,” he said, rests on extrapolating from conflicts where air dominance was absent, ignoring that true airpower requires integrated management and advanced fighters.

Even if expectations are managed, scaling production poses formidable hurdles. In a separate April 2025 CSBA report, Sharp noted that cost targets have repeatedly shifted—from $30–40 million per unit to as low as $10 million for initial tranches—illustrating deep uncertainty over realistic affordability.

According to Sharp, while the US Air Force emphasizes the mantra of “affordable mass,” analysts warn that hidden costs associated with autonomy software, logistics, basing and sustainment could drive overall expenditures well beyond the cost of unit airframes. Sharp also flagged unclear deployment concepts, unresolved basing and logistics and cultural resistance, concluding that affordability and sustainment are the steepest barriers.

The CCA’s first flights may open a new chapter in airpower, but the real battle is proving they can be built, sustained and fielded at scale. Whether they become a force multiplier breakthrough or another overhyped prototype will hinge on how quickly the US Air Force can turn promise into production.