Collaborative Combat Aircraft: the Air Force CCA program explained

Collaborative Combat Aircraft is the Air Force's uncrewed fighter program

Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) is the U.S. Air Force program to design, build, and field uncrewed aircraft that fly and fight alongside crewed fighters such as the F-35 and F-22.

The Air Force assigned the program's first two prototypes a fighter-class Mission Design Series in March 2025: General Atomics' aircraft became the YFQ-42A and Anduril's became the YFQ-44A. In the Air Force's own announcement, Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin said the service had, "for the first time in our history, a fighter designation in the YFQ-42A and YFQ-44A." The prefix breaks down as Y for prototype status, dropped once an aircraft enters production, F for fighter, and Q for uncrewed aircraft.

The program sits inside the Air Force's Next Generation Air Dominance Family of Systems, the umbrella term for the service's mix of crewed and uncrewed platforms, according to the Air Force's YFQ-42A flight-test announcement.

Increment 1 moved from design award to production contract in about two years

Increment 1 moved from a detailed-design award to a production contract in about two years, based on the Air Force's own program timeline.

In April 2024, the Department of the Air Force exercised option awards to fund General Atomics Aeronautical Systems and Anduril for detailed designs, manufacture, and testing of production-representative test articles, while keeping a broader pool the announcement described as more than 20 companies eligible for future rounds.

General Atomics' aircraft first flew in August 2025, moving from contract award to flight in 15 months, according to the company's own production-contract announcement. In February 2026, GA-ASI gave the airframe the name "Dark Merlin" in a separate company release.

On June 17, 2026, the Air Force awarded production contracts to both companies, four months ahead of the service's own schedule. Production aircraft drop the "Y" prototype prefix: General Atomics' is designated FQ-42A and Anduril's is designated FQ-44A. The same Air Force release states a program goal of fielding more than 150 combat-capable CCA by the end of the decade; the service's April 2024 announcement described a longer-term objective of roughly 1,000 aircraft. Neither release states a contract dollar value.

Increment 1 and Increment 2 designations at a glance

Mission-autonomy software is a separate, competed layer

The Air Force runs CCA mission-autonomy software as a competition separate from the airframe contract, under a government-owned framework called the Autonomy Government Reference Architecture (A-GRA).

In February 2026, the Air Force validated A-GRA across four vendors, running RTX's Collins Aerospace and General Atomics software on the YFQ-42 airframe and Shield AI and Anduril software on the YFQ-44 airframe. "Verifying A-GRA across multiple partners is critical to our acquisition strategy," said Col. Timothy Helfrich, the program's portfolio acquisition executive for fighters and advanced aircraft. "It proves that we are not locked into a single solution or a single vendor."

The June 2026 production announcement set a baseline pool of six mission-autonomy vendors: Anduril, General Atomics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, RTX's Collins Aerospace, and Shield AI. It also awarded competitive production options specifically to Anduril, Collins Aerospace, and Shield AI, per the Air Force's own release.

For investors, the split matters because it separates two different businesses to research: the airframe production contract that General Atomics and Anduril now hold, and the mission-autonomy software layer that a wider group of companies, including some with no airframe award, can sell into.

RTX vs Lockheed Martin: two different bets on the same software competition

RTX and Lockheed Martin are both named in the Air Force's six-vendor mission-autonomy software pool for CCA, but the two companies reach that pool from different directions.

RTX's presence in the program is software only: Collins Aerospace is one of the qualified mission-autonomy vendors, and RTX has no CCA airframe of its own anywhere in its portfolio. Lockheed Martin sits in the same six-vendor software pool and separately self-funded its own Group 5 airframe, Vectis, through Skunk Works, giving it two distinct paths into the program instead of one.

Reading the RTX-versus-Lockheed CCA comparison

For a CCA-focused research angle, RTX is a single bet on the mission-autonomy software layer, isolated from any airframe outcome. Lockheed Martin is a two-sided bet: the same software-layer exposure plus an independent, so-far-uncontracted airframe.

Neither company discloses CCA-specific revenue as a separate line, so both require reading segment commentary rather than a program-specific figure, and neither should be treated as a pure CCA stock.

RTX vs Northrop Grumman: software-layer exposure versus a legacy unmanned-aircraft business

RTX and Northrop Grumman also sit together in the same six-vendor CCA mission-autonomy pool, but Northrop brings a decades-old fielded unmanned-aircraft business that RTX does not have anywhere on its own ticker.

Northrop Grumman's CCA-relevant work is a company-funded prototype, Talon Blue (YFQ-48A), that sits alongside production and sustainment revenue from long-running high-altitude ISR programs. RTX has neither an established unmanned-aircraft line nor a self-funded CCA prototype; its only path into the program is the Collins Aerospace software competition.

Reading the RTX-versus-Northrop Grumman CCA comparison

Northrop Grumman gives a researcher exposure to fielded, revenue-generating unmanned aircraft today, with its CCA prototype work sitting alongside that as a speculative add-on rather than the core thesis. RTX gives exposure only to the newer software competition, with no unmanned-aircraft business anywhere on the ticker.

Treating either as a straightforward "CCA stock" overstates how much of either company's revenue that one program actually represents; the CCA angle is a small piece of a much larger diversified-prime story for both.

Where Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Kratos fit

Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Kratos Defense are not the two companies holding the Increment 1 production contract, but each has separate, verifiable ties to the broader CCA effort.

Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works unveiled Vectis, a company-funded Group 5 collaborative combat aircraft, in a September 2025 company release describing it as designed to fly independently or team with crewed fighters such as the F-35. Lockheed's own material does not state that Vectis holds an Air Force production contract.

Northrop Grumman self-funded a separate CCA prototype under its Project Talon effort; the Air Force assigned it the designation YFQ-48A in a December 2025 announcement, naming it Talon Blue. Northrop's own program page describes Talon Blue as company-funded, not built under an Air Force production contract.

Boeing's collaborative combat aircraft experience is with a different program for a different customer: the MQ-28 Ghost Bat, built for the Royal Australian Air Force. It is not part of the U.S. Air Force's CCA Increment 1 or Increment 2.

Kratos Defense's XQ-58A Valkyrie is an earlier attritable, uncrewed tactical aircraft that fed Air Force autonomy risk-reduction work under the Skyborg program. It is not one of the aircraft the Air Force selected for CCA Increment 1 or Increment 2 production.

Increment 2 status: the competitor list is not yet finalized

CCA Increment 2 had not produced a single, finalized, publicly named competitor list as of the date this page was last checked.

What is confirmed: the Air Force's own April 2024 announcement described a broader industry pool of more than 20 companies beyond the two selected for Increment 1, and Northrop Grumman's YFQ-48A designation in December 2025 puts one named, government-designated aircraft inside that pool. Program officials have also discussed favoring lower-cost, more expendable designs for Increment 2, without committing that framing to a specific contract in any release reviewed for this page.

Check the Air Force's own CCA news tag page and the Department of War's daily contract announcements directly for Increment 2 awards rather than relying on a secondary competitor list, since these have varied in reported vendor counts and timing.

Research path for investors

Investors researching Collaborative Combat Aircraft should separate the airframe production contract from the mission-autonomy software layer, since the Air Force runs them as two different competitions with different winners.

Start with General Atomics and Anduril for the current Increment 1 production award, then check Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman for the software-vendor pool and their own company-funded aircraft. Defense stocks and how to invest in defense tech cover the company-screening framework, and military drones gives the wider UAS mission-type context.