A written answer in Parliament links the UK Collaborative Combat Aircraft to the Royal Navy’s Hybrid Carrier Air Wing, as industry imagery shows the new drone fighters flying from a carrier deck.
The Ministry of Defence has confirmed that the UK Collaborative Combat Aircraft programme is supporting delivery of the Royal Navy’s Hybrid Carrier Air Wing, in response to a parliamentary question on when production of the air wing would begin.
Stuart Anderson, Conservative MP for South Shropshire, asked Defence when production would commence on the first Hybrid Navy Carrier Air Wing. Answering, Minister of State Luke Pollard said: “The Hybrid Air Wing is not a single product with one production start date. It is an evolving mix of crewed and uncrewed aircraft and one-way effectors that will be introduced incrementally.”
Setting out where the work stands, the minister added: “Delivery is already under way through the integration and trialling of uncrewed systems, supported by investment in Project PANTHEON and the UK Collaborative Combat Aircraft programme.”
The reference places the UK CCA effort, announced by the government as StormFighter and backed by £300 million in the Defence Investment Plan, alongside the Royal Navy’s own carrier aviation work rather than treating the two as separate lines of development. Previous written answers have pointed to the RAF and Royal Navy working together on the CCA, and Project VANQUISH, the trials strand sitting under PANTHEON, has been described by the Royal Navy as a joint endeavour with the RAF to demonstrate a fixed-wing autonomous collaborative platform from an aircraft carrier.
Project PANTHEON received almost £250 million in the Defence Investment Plan, allocated to the development of autonomous systems to begin building the Hybrid Carrier Air Wing and to trials of jet-powered drones intended to work alongside the F-35B force. The plan stated that the Queen Elizabeth-class carriers would exploit uncrewed systems, including CCAs, to augment the F-35B force, with the wider Maritime Aviation Transformation programme aiming to move the Fleet Air Arm toward a largely uncrewed force by 2040.
Industry has also been depicting its CCA offerings in a maritime setting. Promotional imagery released alongside the unveiling of BAE Systems’ Brontanax at the Farnborough International Airshow yesterday showed the aircraft operating from a carrier deck, and similar depictions have accompanied other manufacturers’ collaborative combat aircraft concepts.
This would be excellent news if possible and backs up my thought about pop-up airfields, which would allow this craft to use STOL-type airports or rural airfields. The convention that RAF planes operate from their bases could be about to change. Vertical take-off drones and F35s could also function from improvised landing grounds or from hundreds of rural airfields across the country.