The U.S. Air Force’s 53rd Wing officially elevated its Collaborative Combat Aircraft unit to a fully operational squadron. The new Experimental Operations Unit was formally activated on Thursday, June 5 at Nellis Air Force Base.
The unit had previously operated as a detachment under the 53rd Wing, based in Nevada, since 2023. This week’s activation as a fully operational squadron comes as the Air Force steps up testing of the first phase of its Collaborative Combat Aircraft (or CCA) program.
“The EOU embodies our commitment to rapid innovation and ensuring our warfighters have the most advanced tools to dominate the future battlespace,” Col. Daniel Lehoski, commander of the 53rd Wing, said in the announcement from the Air Force. “They are ready to reduce risk in concurrency and deliver capability faster.”
CCA development is a part of the sixth-generation Next Generation Air Dominance fighter jet program, which itself started as a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (or DARPA) project in 2015. The idea is to create remote controlled aircraft to be essentially uncrewed wingmen for pilots, with each crewed fighter jet able to give commands to the drones.
While other branches of the armed forces are working on a greater integration of drones and other uncrewed systems, the Air Force’s CCA program is unique in that it would act as an uncrewed force multiplier for crewed aircraft. The program is being developed in two stages, or increments as the Air Force refers to it. Increment 1 is currently testing some of the new aircraft, which were designated the YFQ-42A and the YFQ-44A in March, and made by General Atomics and Anduril, respectively.
The new experimental operations unit at Nellis will start with running simulations out of the base’s Virtual Warfare Center and the Joint Integrated Test and Training Center. The Air Force’s stated plan is to eventually carry out actual flight tests based on those simulations.
Lt. Col. Matthew Jensen, head of the Experimental Operations Unit, said that the new squadron’s mission is to deliver “combat-ready capabilities” to the force.
“Our vision is to create a collaborative combat ecosystem that is more agile, adaptable and lethal,” Jensen said. “This will enable our forces to dominate the future battlespace and achieve decisive advantages in complex, contested environments.”
The activation of the experimental operations unit comes only a few weeks after the Air Force began ground testing of CCA systems at Beale Air Force Base in California. Beale was selected as the home for the Air Force’s first CCA Aircraft Readiness Unit.
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