NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The U.S. Air Force secretary says the service of 2032 will have 500 collaborative combat aircraft, 500 drones that represent the next-generation of MQ-9 and “thousands” of one-way attack drones.
“Because of the steps we are taking today, we will have a significantly different force by 2032,” Troy Meink said today at the Air & Space Forces Association’s Air, Space, Cyber Conference here.
The service in June awarded production contracts for its CCA program. In July, the Air Force, in collaboration with the Defense Innovation Unit, announced its effort to develop a next-generation drone to replace the MQ-9 Reaper, dubbed MMA for Massed Modular Aircraft.
“MMAs will provide affordable, attritable, long-range strike, and we will be able to build them at scale,” Meink said today. “Our intent is to field 100 MMAs in 2029 at even a lower cost than the CCAs and a fraction of the cost of manned aircraft we build today. Then, by 2032, 500 of these platforms will join our force operational field.”
Meink also said the Air Force is “expanding munitions with our Family of Affordable Mass Munition[s] programs,” which are weapons “designed from the onset for producibility and affordable mass.”
These are “already being used today,” he said. By 2030, “we expect to have tens of thousands in the inventory.”
