“Our original plan was—and the funding that was laid in—was for two increments. … You don’t have to get everything into this Increment 1. What we need to do is get it out there, with the minimum viable capability, on time or early, and on-budget or under budget. But Increment 2 …. we are close to getting started in earnest on that.”
There is a government analysis underway for Increment 2 “with other parties…and internal government agencies” to determine the needed attributes of the system.
“And then next year—actually this fiscal year—we will kick off concept refinement, where we then bring in industry to help us further define what those attributes are and whittle down those use cases,” Helfrich said. “It’s really the same approach that we did for CCA Increment 1.”
He also said that studies and experiments so far indicate that pilots of crewed fighters will likely be able to control many more CCAs than originally thought.
Senior USAF leaders have speculated that the CCA program could eventually achieve a rhythm of introducing a new design every two to four years, which would be better for staying abreast of both changing technological opportunities and threats.
Helfrich emphasized that Increment 2 is not a derivative or growth version of Increment 1.
Just because it’s called Increment 2 doesn’t mean it “has more capability … we’re still looking to figure out … the right balance and do the analysis” of the needed capability “to maximize low cost,” he said. The Air Force may yet decide to “change the focus” of CCAs “from a missile truck to something else,” perhaps an electronic warfare platform.
“I think it’s a little too early to say whether or not we’re going to do “Increment 1B or 1C. We’ll have to learn as Increment 1 rolls out and as Increment 2 rolls out, but we do expect them to be complementary,” and that there will be “multiple Increments in the force at the same time.”
Helfrich said the life expectancy of a CCA is also not yet determined. Early concepts called for using the craft for a number of sorties, and then divesting them on one-way missions, with the idea of avoiding the creation of a sustainment enterprise to support them.
“A lot has to do with how you use them,” he later told Air & Space Forces Magazine. While a small number of CCAs may be used for training, most of their missions would likely be practiced in simulators, and the aircraft themselves would be stored in a crate until needed for operations.
