Episode Summary: Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) represent the next generation of uncrewed autonomous airpower. The Air Force recently awarded a series of contracts that will see the FQ-42 and FQ-44 CCAs transition to the operational realm. We want to learn more about where the program stands at this juncture, and there’s no one better to help us do that than Anduril&#x27;s Dave “Mach” Cochran and General Atomic&#x27;s Mike Atwood. Credits: Host: Heather &quot;Lucky&quot; Penney, Director of Research, The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies Producer: Shane Thin Executive Producer: Douglas Birkey Guest: David &quot;Mach&quot; Cochran, Director, Autonomous Airpower Growth, Anduril Industries Guest: Mike Atwood, Senior Director, Advanced Programs at General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Links: Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: https://bit.ly/3GbA5Of Website: https://mitchellaerospacepower.org/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/MitchellStudies Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Mitchell.Institute.Aerospace LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nzBisb Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mitchellstudies/ #MitchellStudies #AerospaceAdvantage #CCA #Industry

CCA Update: What Are the Next Steps? — Ep. 296

The Aerospace Advantage

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** The Aerospace Advantage

## Participants

- **Heather Lucky-Penney** (The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies)
- **Dave Mock-Cockman** (Anduril Industries)
- **Mike Atwood** (General Atomics Aeronautical Systems)

## Transcript

Welcome to the Aerospace Advantage podcast brought to you by PenFed. I'm your host, Heather Lucky-Penney. Here on the Aerospace Advantage, we speak with leaders in the armed forces industry and other subject matter experts to explore the intersection of strategy, operational concepts, technology, and policy when it comes to air and space power. We talk a lot about collaborative combat aircraft, CCA for short, and we talk about them a lot for good reason.

They represent the next generation of uncrewed air power, and the Air Force has a ton riding on their success. The service recently awarded a series of contracts tied to CCA, and these are really crucial because these contracts were not for more research and development. The Air Force is now buying operational CCA at scale. And you've heard us say this a lot, if you want to make something real, you must buy it. So these contracts represent a historic marker.

So we want to learn more about where the program stands at this juncture, and there's no one better to help with that than the experts from General Atomics and Andrel. These are the companies that are making the FQ-42 and the FQ-44, respectively. So we want to know more about what it means to meet this engineering and manufacturing development and production contract milestone. So with that, it's my pleasure to introduce Dave Mock-Cockman from Andrel. He's a longtime Air Force fighter pilot with time in the F-15E and the F-35. Plus, he was our second Mitchell Institute Air Force fellow back in the day.

He's recently retired and is now on the Andrel team. Congratulations, by the way, Mock. Thanks, Heather. Happy to be here and excited to be back with the Mitchell team. And we've also got Mike Atwood from General Atomics. And those of you who are longtime listeners, you know Mike is an expert on CCA and uncrewed aircraft. He's vice president of advanced programs at GAASI and has an impressive background in aerospace and really helped pioneer unmanned aviation in so many regards, given his work on MQ-9 and other key programs over the years.

Mike, it's wonderful to have you back with us. You always add so much to the conversation. Yeah, it's always fun to talk about unmanned and kind of the future that's in front of us and just super excited to talk about the production award and what we're doing on the CCA program. Yeah, because this is crucial. It's really vibrant and it's exciting technology. So let's zoom out and take a look at the big picture first. Why is this EMD production contract such a big deal? Mike, let's start with you.

Yeah, you know, I think there was a lot of disbelief that the Air Force could go as fast as some of the goals that they had. And both Andrel and GA w...

CCA Update: What Are the Next Steps? — Ep. 296

Transcript

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CCA Update: What Are the Next Steps? — Ep. 296

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.