The House Armed Services Committee wants a deeper understanding of the Air Force’s future fighter mix, starting with greater oversight of both the sixth-generation F-47 jet and autonomous Collaborative Combat Aircraft.
At least three amendments to the committee’s draft of the fiscal year 2026 defense policy bill, which passed by a 55-2 vote on Tuesday, are aimed at expanding lawmakers’ access to information about requirements, cost and timelines for those otherwise secretive programs.
For starters, few details are actually known publicly about the Next Generation Air Dominance platform — now known as the F-47 — although the Air Force envisions it as the backbone of its future fleet and as its most advanced fighter yet.
An amendment proposed by Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) would mandate that the Air Force secretary brief all congressional defense committees about how the service plans to use the F-47 in combat, the platform’s scope of capabilities, projected cost between FY-28 and FY-34, its acquisition strategy and other scheduling milestones, to include early strategic basing considerations.
That report would be due by March 1, 2027, the amendment says. The F-47 is already undergoing development by plane-maker Boeing at its St. Louis facilities.
The Trump administration in March awarded Boeing a long sought-after contract to produce the sixth-generation aircraft, with expectations to fly the F-47 before the end of President Trump’s second term.
Other amendments, proposed by Reps. Michael Turner (R-OH) and Rob Wittman (R-VA), are focused on Collaborative Combat Aircraft, or the AI-driven drone wingmen planned to accompany manned aircraft into battle.
The Air Force has said its CCA program would field in several iterations, with the first serving as unmanned missile trucks. Increment 1 prototypes are now being built by Anduril Industries and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems with a production decision set for next calendar year.
The Air Force has previously disclosed that its fifth- and-sixth-generation fighters would eventually team up with the autonomous drones to complete missions en masse, but CCAs might also conduct solo tasks. Initial flight tests of each firm’s CCA prototypes are planned for later this summer.
Turner’s amendment calls for the service secretary to brief House authorizers by Jan. 16, 2026 on the Air Force’s plans to transition the CCA increment 1 prototypes to full-scale production.
“In just over five years, the CCA program has progressed from conceptual development to production and fielding of an operationally relevant capability, while leveraging technologically advanced contributions of an expanding industrial base,” according to the amendment. “The committee expects the Air Force to move forward with full-scale production of Increment 1 as soon as possible following the completion of successful flight demonstrations.”
Wittman’s amendment, meanwhile, focuses on an explanation as to how the Air Force is validating the human-machine interface and pilot vehicle interface for the airmen controlling CCAs.
“The committee believes investment in software development in parallel with vehicle development is crucial to the CCA fielding timeline,” the amendment says. “The committee notes that the Collaborative Combat Aircraft has significant potential to expand the fighter fleet at a fraction of the cost, while also offering an increase in operational options.”
By Dec. 1, according to the draft legislation, the service secretary would need to send House authorizers a report detailing:
- “How the CCA program is defining physical platform requirements based on a tactics-driven acquisition strategy.
- “How an early integration of the CCA’s HMI and PVI software into the Joint Simulation Environment would accelerate the timeline for fielding effective and reliable PVI software solutions.
- “How to apply lessons learned from the CCA program HMI integration across the joint service autonomous vehicle enterprise like the Replicator program.”
Five software vendors are additionally on contract to develop the mission autonomy for CCA increment 1, the Air Force announced last July. The names of those businesses are being kept secret due to the program’s classification status, the service has said.
Originally published Inside Defense
