Air Force tests drone wingmen at Creech Air Force Base

The Air Force’s push to field uncrewed aircraft alongside traditional fighter jets took a step forward in the Nevada desert, where its Collaborative Combat Aircraft Experimental Operations Unit recently ran an Agile Combat Employment drill at Creech Air Force Base to probe how semi-autonomous systems perform outside sterile test ranges.

“Air superiority in today’s increasingly contested environments requires the rapid fielding of affordable mass,” said Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ken Wilsbach, emphasizing the strategic driver for the platform. “CCA are essential to this effort. By integrating uncrewed systems to fly alongside our Airmen, we extend reach and increase lethality.”

Across multiple days, the unit generated repeated sorties to gauge reliability and range, paired the uncrewed aircraft with manned platforms in local airspace to practice projecting power across dispersed battlefields, and ran scenarios to help shape future requirements. The objective was to start codifying tactics, techniques and procedures for how the aircraft will be employed in combat.

“This exercise was about getting the systems into the hands of the warfighter,” said Lt. Col. Matthew Jensen, Experimental Operations Unit commander. “We are focused on operating CCA outside of a traditional test environment so we can continue to learn, inform and rapidly iterate.”

Members of the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center observed under a new rapid operational testing approach designed to speed decisions about what to field and how. “Our test teams can continuously use these warfighter-run exercises to gather and analyze data that aids in informed CCA fielding decisions well ahead of the normal process to deliver combat capability when needed by our Air Force and the Nation,” said Brig. Gen. Jesse Friedel, AFOTEC commander.

Operating across different locations and weaving advanced autonomous features into missions were key learning goals aimed at maturing human-machine teaming. The CCA effort has advanced from concept to flight testing in under two years and is being positioned as a pathfinder for faster acquisition, in part by injecting competition and embedding operators early in development, according to Jensen.

“The exercise was not only a test of technology but a testament to the warfighters who are actively shaping CCA development,” Wilsbach said. “The lessons learned at Creech will directly influence how the Air Force integrates these cutting-edge concepts into future combat ops.”