Recently, the Edwards Air Force Base of the US military air combat between two F-16 jets, one of which was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI) and the other by a human pilot. However, reports that the US Air Force (USAF) could have up to a thousand autonomously piloted F-16s in just a few years’ time due to the rapid progress of AI capabilities are completely unfounded.
On board the modified “robot bird” F-16D/X-62A (VISTA, Variable In-flight Simulation Test Aircraft) was Air Force Secretary Frank Kendallthe highest civilian official in the USAF. Judging by his smile, after a full hour of experimental flight against a human pilot in the other F-16, Kendall seems to be fully convinced of the AI’s ability to conduct combat and decide if and when to use its weapons. Kendall was accompanied by a safety pilot in the back seat of the X-62A, as is always the case when the autonomously controlled jet takes to the air. The USAF states that the flight controls of both Kendall and the safety pilot “remained completely unaffected” during the mission.
The US defense research agency DARPA reported similar successes during recent air combat trials, where “the intervention of two human safety pilots was not required at any point during the evaluations”. Building confidence in autonomous flight technology among human operators is one of the main goals of the program, the agency said. The ultimate goal is to “enable human-machine collaboration that gives friendly pilots an advantage in increasingly complex air combat scenarios. We need to be able to trust these algorithms to use them in a real-world environment,” says Lieutenant Colonel Ryan Hefron, the program manager responsible for DARPA.
Red line
The idea that AI alone decides whether or not to shoot at enemies is currently – as was also as discussed at a recent conference organized by the Austrian Foreign Ministry (more on this in the next issue of Militär Aktuell, -> click here to subscribe) – is still a “red line”. AI specialists, futurologists and humanitarian organizations point out the numerous dangers that would be associated with such a decision. For example, it would be difficult to control how artificial intelligence decides whether to fire or not. However, similar concerns exist not only in the military sector, but also, for example, in relation to the large-scale use of autonomously controlled vehicles.
No 1,000 “discarded” F-16s
The news of Kendall’s remarkable flight in the experimental F-16/VISTA has been reported by various media and portals to assume that the 1,000 AI-controlled platforms announced by Kendall three months ago on the fringes of the 2024 Air & Space Forces Association Warfare Symposium in Aurora could be decommissioned F-16s – and then “upgraded” with AI capabilities – from 2028. However, this is a mistake.
Instead, the planned 1,000 platforms are so-called “Collaborative Combat Aircraft”, or CCA for short. These are a family of unmanned and air-to-air and/or air-to-ground armed aircraft with advanced autonomy and unit costs of one third to one quarter of an F-35. Based on findings from the VISTA program, the USA is aiming to significantly increase its total number of operational fighters and bombers in order to compensate for Beijing’s numerical and qualitative advantages, especially in Western Pacific/Taiwan scenarios in the event of a confrontation with China.
Classic well-known manufacturers no longer in the race
On April 24, the USAF announced that it had reduced the number of potential CCA suppliers (Kendall: “We need at least two, but would like to have three”) – some of the designs are already flying – from five to two. Now only General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (known for MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper) and newcomer Anduril are to continue developing their concepts, while – unexpectedly – Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop-Grumman will only “support the research and development of AI-supported robotics”.
The figure of 1,000 CCAs – an initial fleet size that could later increase significantly, according to Kendall – is based on an operational concept in which two of these highly subsonic stealth drones are combined with 200 stealthy manned fighter jets of the future sixth generation and 300 F-35A Joint Strike Fighters. Both are elements of the USAF’s broader Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) initiative. Kendall also explained at the aforementioned symposium that manned aircraft could in future be combined with several CCA as a so-called “Loyal Wingman” if the corresponding autonomy and other technologies made this possible. It is conceivable, for example, that two CCAs could be deployed from each of the US F-15EXs, or that ten B-52s or, in future, B-21s could be flown into combat at the same time.
However, it is of course also possible that the platforms could be launched from forward ground bases (in the event of a confrontation with China, for example, from bases in the Pacific), for example with the support of launch support missiles.) They would primarily be effective against Chinese multiplier platforms such as AWACS, AEW and ELINT aircraft and tankers.
Conversely, the Chinese are probably pursuing a similar strategy with their J-20 stealth jets and their PL-15/21 guided missiles. There are already over 200 of these today – plus hundreds of J-10s, J-11s, J-15s (Navy) and J-16s – and therefore there is likely to be a numerical Chinese superiority around China over anything the USA could put into the air there – the talk is of “the tyranny of distance” – should the worst come to the worst. This is why the CCA concept is needed, which the author has reported on in detail elsewhere – as well as on a wargame conducted this year at the Mitchell Institute.
Cross-force approach
During another panel discussion on CCA at the Warfare Symposium, Brigadier General Jason Voorheis, (USAF Program Executive Officer for Fighters and Advanced Aircraft), said that “the CCA program has a consortium of more than 30 industry partners participating in the areas of autonomy, aircraft, vision systems and software development”. In the same interview, he also announced that the USAF would expand its existing tri-service CCA agreement with the Navy and Marine Corps to include the U.S. Special Operations Command. “The existing agreement focuses on collaboration in four key areas: Mission System Architecture, Autonomy Architecture, Ground Segments and Data Connectivity,” he explained. The US Navy has already stated that a key goal of this collaboration is to enable the seamless transfer of control of CCA, regardless of which service uses it.
Here for more news about the US Army.
