“We must guarantee that tomorrow's Airmen inherit an Air Force that can win,” Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach wrote in his first letter to the force.

Both Anduril and General Atomics have now moved into the live flight test stage of the Air Force's Collaborative Combat Aircraft program.

The company expects to conduct first vertical-take-off-and-landing (VTOL) flight tests of X-BAT sometime next year.

“As we go forward, we’re watching closely in our experimentation to develop a full requirement [and] potentially deliver a capability over the next couple of years," said…

“We’re thinking that they’re not going to be embedded in current fighter squadrons, but rather they’re going to be their own squadrons,” Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach said.

General Atomics recently began flight testing of its prototype, dubbed the YFQ-42A, at an unnamed location in California.

“We are understanding the value of it, but assimilating it into our institution is one I think we still have some work to do on," Gen. David…

The Air Force also announced that the CCA drones will be based at Beale Air Force Base in California.

“Maybe [it’s] just symbolic, but it’s telling the world that we are leaning into a new chapter of aerial warfare," Gen. David Allvin said.

“It is likely these areas of advanced military technology will be manifest through the increasingly widespread use of autonomy and automation, in all domains, but especially in…