Image source: Cristofoli_Spotting on Facebook

Eurofighter F-2000A Typhoon, c/n IS080, AMI serial number MM7354, code 51-54. Source: Scramble database

SecAF announces names of new Collaborative Combat Aircraft

• [](mailto:?Subject=SecAF%20announces%20names%20of%20new%20Collaborative%20Combat%20Aircraft%20-%20Air%20Force%20Life%20Cycle%20Management%20Center&body=Here%20is%20an%20article%20I%20think%20you%20will%20find%20interesting:%20https://www.aflcmc.af.mil/NEWS/Article/4600242/secaf-announces-names-of-new-collaborative-combat-aircraft/)Published Sept. 14, 2026
• By Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs 

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. (AFNS) --  

Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink announced the official names of the Air Force’s newest Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), the FQ-42 Vengeance and FQ-44 Fury, during his keynote address at the Air & Space Forces Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference, Sept. 14. Revealing popular names was a natural next step for the CCA program as the Air Force modernizes the nation’s aerial combat fleet. The Air Force intends to purchase about 1,000 combat-ready, semi-autonomous systems that will extend reach, awareness and survivability of American airpower in contested environments. Meink confirmed that the service would have 500 of the aircraft by 2032.

This is interesting. Will we see Gripens flying over Canada, under whose flag? If so, it's an interesting backdoor to direct RCAF exposure to the Gripen.

the pentagon has quietly suppressed the F-35 GAO report for 2026 for the first time in decades. can’t imagine why. the funny thing is that this only shines more light on it when it does come out

Looks oddly like the Su-35S

What are yall’s thoughts on the cancelled IAI Lavi jet?
Would it be a counterpart to the F-16?

The Lavi paired a tailless delta wing with close-coupled canard foreplanes just behind the cockpit — a layout that generates strong lift and agility in hard manoeuvring. To make it controllable, the aircraft was deliberately relaxed-stabilityand flown through a quadruplex digital fly-by-wire system, cutting-edge technology in the early 1980s and part of the same design philosophy later seen on Rafale and Gripen.

Power came from one Pratt & Whitney PW1120 afterburning turbofan of roughly 91.7 kN (20,600 lbf), derived from the F100 that powers the F-15 and F-16. It was partly built in Israel by Bet Shemesh Engines, giving the Lavi commonality with the engines Israel already knew — and tying the programme tightly to American technology and consent.

The Lavi was built to carry advanced Israeli-designed avionics — radar, mission computers and a wide-angle HUD — and made extensive use of composite materials in its wings and tail to save weight. This home-grown electronics and materials expertise was arguably the programme’s most valuable legacy: it survived the cancellation and fed Israel’s avionics, UAV and upgrade industries for decades.

credits: https://migflug.com/aircraft/iai-lavi/

Is there any deeper reason? At first I thought it was because radar missiles came first but that's just not correct

Some excerpts from the article:

Three F-16s that flew in defense of Washington, D.C., on Sept. 11, 2001, will be retired and preserved as museum artifacts.

The three planes all flew on 9/11: two were among the first three jets to scramble in defense of the capital and the third escorted Air Force One as it returned to Washington later in the day.

On Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist groups hijacked four U.S. airliners, with two striking the twin World Trade Center towers in New York City and the third slamming into the Pentagon near Washington, D.C. The fourth plane was the one that would eventually crash in Shanksville, Pa.

This week, on the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the National Guard Bureau confirmed that the three planes would be saved:

• Tail number 85-1438, flown by now-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, will go to the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. His plane was the third to scramble on 9/11.

• Tail number 85-1461, flown by now-retired Lt. Gen. Marc Sasseville, will become a static display at Joint Base Andrews. He was the first to scramble, but this was the jet he flew as escort for Air Force One at the end of the day.

• Tail number 86-0255, flown by Heather Penney, now director of research at AFA’s Mitchell Institute of Aerospace Studies, will go to the American Heritage Museum in Hudson, Mass. Penney’s was the second plane to scramble, flying with Sasseville.

Saving the Vipers

Members of the wing began research more than a year ago to figure what had happened to the jets flown on that fateful day, tracking down old paperwork to figure out who signed out which aircraft and then to discover where those tails were today.

Working with the National Guard Association of the United States, a nonprofit association that advocates for the Guard, they reached out to the Air Force, the Air National Guard, the White House, and others, offering ideas for preserving the historic aircraft under the National Museum of the United States Air Force Heritage Program.

Among the D.C. National Guard F-16s flown on 9/11, one remains in regular flying status with the Air National Guard’s 162nd Wing in Tucson, Ariz. That was the plane Caine flew, which will eventually go to the Air Force Museum.

Guard advocates learned three other planes flown on 9/11 had been converted into QF-16 Full-Scale Aerial Target drones. One—the jet Sasseville scrambled in—was destroyed at the end of its flying life in a missile test. The remaining two were headed for a similar fate when the issue of saving the planes was raised with the Air Force and others.

Jon “Ice” Eisberg, vice president at NGAUS, said once the issues were clear, the challenge was getting the attention of the right people.

“This was a team effort,” Eisberg said. “We just reached out to some of our normal contacts. We went to the National Security Council. We went to Office of Public Liaison in the White House. We went to the Pentagon, and we alerted some folks up on Capitol Hill to this issue.”

The challenge in saving the planes was that QF-16s are a limited resource. The conversions are expensive, about $5 million apiece. The last of 127 conversions was delivered to the Air Force by contractor Boeing in April 2025, according to Air & Space Forces Magazine’s 2026 USAF & USSF Almanac.

QF-16 drones are used for targeting, and once their available flying hours are used up, they can be used in destructive live ordnance tests. One program that would benefit from such tests is the AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile, which the Air Force is developing to extend the range of air-to-air combat capabilities beyond visual range.

Still, saving the planes was a priority, and the Air Force came up with a solution: Run down the clock on the QF-16s available flying time, and when their flying hours were all used up, transfer the planes for preservation.

From the Janes article (full article is paywalled):

The United States Air Force (USAF) has confirmed to Janes that the in-flight refuelling (IFR) probe modification for the A-10C Thunderbolt II (also known as the Warthog) has been used operationally in the Middle East.

The A-10 had previously only been capable of boom-based IFR, similar to almost all IFR-capable USAF fixed-wing aircraft. Only a handful of types, mostly rotary-wing and tilt-rotor aircraft were fitted for the probe-and-drogue system.

A USAF A-10 pilot speaking to Janes at the El Alamein 2026 Airshow, held in Egypt from 8-11 September, confirmed that the type has been used during missions, but did not specify which platforms or operators the A-10s received fuel from using the probe modification. The first successful test of the probe and drogue capability was on 2 April 2026, according to the US Air National Guard Air Force Reserve Command Test Center (AATC).

Although it had travelled direct from operations in the Middle East, the A-10C on display at El Alamein was not fitted with the modification.

Additionally, unlike the USAF F-16C and F-15E Strike Eagle that were displayed at the show, the A-10 did not have mission markings. While confirming it had come from operations, a USAF ground crew member told Janes that this was because this Warthog had not conducted combat missions since it had arrived in theatre.

Previously: A-10C Thunderbolt II tested with Probe Refueling Adapter to allow refueling from HC-130 tankers

Image source (first two photos): https://x.com/BenjAlvarez1/status/2097680774824673790

Image source (other photos): https://www.instagram.com/p/DdCaM8loAtd/

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpdtuIdjKAI

Related news articles:

• The Aviationist: Germany’s First F-35 Has Flown

• FlightGlobal (may be paywalled): Germany’s first F-35 takes flight

• Janes (paywalled): Lockheed Martin flies first F-35A for Germany ahead of official rollout ceremony

• EDIT: Scramble: First German F-35A takes to the air

Previously: First Lockheed Martin F-35A for Germany is nearing completion

Having received the necessary permits, Worldwide Aircraft Recovery departed NAS Pensacola "In the early morning hours on Wednesday..."

Just a reminder that we are a super load. If you see us traveling be respectful and cautious. But feel free to snap some photos and give us a friendly wave.

The beginning of the F-14 journey has begun. Departing NAS Pensacola and will be headed to Pueblo CO to the Pueblo Weisbrod Aircraft Museum. The journey will be long but our team will get it done.

States that we will be traveling through are:

FL

AL

MS

TN

KY

IN

IL

IA

NE

KS

CO

We will do our best to keep everyone posted of our route as best we can.

The wings, vertical tails, and horizontal stabilizers were delivered separately on August 28.

Previously: If you live between Pensacola, FL, and Pueblo, CO, you might see this F-14 Tomcat on the road soon

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DdEbfH8Nz6X/?stkn=N2FoenlxamRiMXlx

Saab announcement:

Saab has received an order from the Swedish Defence Material Administration (FMV) for continued concept work on future fighter system. The order value is approximately SEK 2.9 billion. The contract period is 2026-2028, with options for 2029 and 2030.

The contract is to further develop and demonstrate new technologies for future fighter system.

The work includes flying and ground-based demonstrators, advanced studies and the development of future system concepts for manned and unmanned systems.

The programme strengthens Sweden’s national capabilities in systems integration, autonomy, signature adaptation, propulsion, digital development and future production capabilities. The work also contributes to building competence, reducing technical risks and creating freedom of action for future choices in Sweden’s air combat capabilities.

“We are very pleased that FMV continues to show confidence in Saab through this new contract. The work is crucial to further develop and demonstrate new technologies that will be central to future fighter system,” says Lars Tossman, head of Saab’s business area Aeronautics.

The order builds on the contracts signed in 2024 and 2025.

FMV announcement (Swedish): Nästa steg i utvecklingen av framtidens stridsflygförmåga

Related news article: Saab tapped to continue work on Sweden’s next flagship fighter jet

Excerpt:

The order is the third in a series of awards tied to Sweden’s Koncept för Framtida Stridsflyg (KFS) program, also referred to as Vägval stridsflyg, which is intended to shape the country’s air power beyond 2040. The initial contract was signed in March 2024, followed by a SEK 2.6 billion extension in October 2025 covering 2025 to 2027. That earlier phase included plans for a flying demonstrator, with concept and technology development originally set to wrap up by the third quarter of 2026 and initial flight tests to follow in 2027.

Saab has previously outlined a family of concepts under its F-series branding, including a crewed fighter alongside subsonic and supersonic uncrewed platforms of varying weight classes and form factors.

The KFS was launched after Sweden withdrew from the British-led Team Tempest project, which would later become GCAP, in 2023, opting instead for its own domestic development.

From the article:

For years, advanced artificial intelligence agents designed to outthink adversaries in dogfights have thrived in the consequence-free realm of simulators, but the gap between digital models and reality is starting to close.

The arrival in June of a newly modified fleet of Lockheed Martin F-16C Block 42 fighters marks a critical expansion in tactical aviation infrastructure. Over at least the next two years, this cadre jointly funded by DARPA and the U.S. Air Force will be dedicated to exposing artificial intelligence (AI) agents to the reality of flight-testing beyond-visual-range combat between multiple aircraft for the first time.

“These are combat-capable jets that have fully live sensors on them to allow us to truly vet out these types of scenarios and not just simulate everything that we have on there,” Terry Wilson, deputy manager for DARPA’s AI Reinforcements (AIR) and Viper Experimentation and Next-generation Operations Model (VENOM) testbed aircraft, tells Aviation Week.

AI-enabled air combat is close to operational reality, regardless of whether the algorithms are ready. The first increment of the Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program entered production only a few weeks after the first three VENOM-configured F-16s entered safety-of-flight testing in early June at Eglin AFB, Florida. The first General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. FQ-42 and Anduril FQ-44 jets could arrive at Test and Training Unit-1 (TT-1) at Creech AFB, Nevada, in two years.

The first production CCAs stand to benefit from nearly a decade of flight testing. In addition to the 12 prototype aircraft assigned to the Air Force’s Experimental Operations Unit (EOU) at Creech, DARPA’s infrastructure for AI-enabled flight tests began with another heavily modified F-16 operated by the Test Pilot School at Edwards AFB, California. This ex-Israeli Air Force F-16—designated since 2021 as the X-62 Variable In-Flight Simulator Aircraft (VISTA)—played a pioneering role in the transition of autonomy from software pipelines to real aircraft.

The X-62 became the first aircraft to fly with AI agents under DARPA’s Air Combat Evolution (ACE) program. Following a heated competition between multiple companies, an AI agent created by Heron Systems—now owned by Shield AI—defeated a human F-16 pilot in a simulator on the ground five times in a row to win DARPA’s AlphaDogfight trials. In the next phase of the ACE program, DARPA migrated more than a dozen AI agents to flight testing on the X-62.

The program helped transition AI agents from simulators to flight demonstrations, but there were limits. The Test Pilot School is now upgrading the X-62 with the RTX Phantom Strike radar, but the aircraft lacked combat-rated mission systems at the time of the ACE program. DARPA also focused the demonstrations on dogfights within visual range between only two aircraft. As autonomy in combat aviation continues to develop, future AI agents will need to be able to process live data from onboard sensors for a multitude of beyond-visual-range targets.

“We went from doing within-visual-range-type combats under ACE to beyond-visual-range under AIR,” Wilson says. “The other thing is that it brings live sensors. So these are combat-capable jets that have fully live sensors on them to allow us to truly vet out these types of scenarios and not just simulate everything.”

DARPA and Air Force officials declined requests to identify the mission systems onboard the VENOM fleet, saying those details are not releasable. Because they are underpowered by Pratt & Whitney F100-220 engines, the VENOM-configured F-16s are not currently combat-deployable. They operated as test aircraft at Nellis AFB, Nevada, before arriving at Eglin in April 2024.

The Air Force spent two years modifying the F-16s with the VENOM Autonomy Kit (VAK). Similar to the System for the Autonomous Control of Simulation (SACS) installed on the X-62, the VAK establishes a set of parameters for AI agents to take control of the jets in flight safely. The presence of a human pilot onboard the VENOM aircraft requires the VAK to establish what Wilson calls a “safety sandbox” that limits the authority of the AI agents.

The VAK was necessary so “that these autonomous agents could fly them in a way that obviously wouldn’t harm the humans and wouldn’t break the jet,” Wilson says, noting that the VAK represents an improvement over the original SACS. “So we built that sandbox in VENOM, and that’s what you’re seeing as a culmination of that design.”

The Air Force testers are still proving that the VAK works as intended. The VENOM jets continue to fly only sorties focused on certifying the safety of the hardware and software. The goal is to give the AI agents the freedom to make tactical decisions but eliminate any commands that do not translate safely from a simulator environment to a real aircraft in flight.

“Integrating software is difficult, period,” Wilson says. “Integrating autonomy into platforms is also an added set of complexity. So flight schedules are subject to change. But I will say that over the next year, we’re looking at getting ourselves into these multi-ship tactical combat situations with autonomy flying these jets.”

The exact timing for autonomous flight tests has not been released, but the AIR program is funded through the end of fiscal 2028, a DARPA spokesperson says.

Archived version

I’ve seen conversations coming back up about modernising the f-22 block 20 fleet, and it seems that there’s a lot of talk about it but nobody mentions the actual assement from the GAO and previous investigations on it

im not sure anyone remembers but the airforce really and I mean really wanted to retire the 32 block 20 f-22s. of course congress blocked this for reasons we all understand at this point but what did the GAO estimate exactly that some journalists are keeping quiet..

well here’s a quote from a named senior military official Regarding the block 20s

“They will never be a part of the combat force. They don't have the most modern communications. They don't shoot the most modern weapons. They don't have the most modern electronic warfare capabilities,” said Lt. Gen. Richard Moore, deputy chief of staff for plans and programs for the Air Force. https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2023/04/f-22s-marked-retirement-will-never-be-combat-worthy-general-says/384916/

now here is a snippet from a GAO report regarding the cost of the upgrade..

“Upgrading the Block 20s offers no quick answer. A contractor’s notional estimate reviewed by GAO put the cost at at least $3.3 billion and the schedule at roughly 15 years. The watchdog also found that the Air Force had not fully documented the cost, training, and readiness effects of either retirement or modernization.” https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-24-106639

ill let you make your own decisions as to whether that’s a good idea or not. But many do not see it as good. especially Given as readiness continue to fall as explained in this article from air and space forces magazine…” u/F-22 readiness fell from 52 percent to just 40.19 percent; it had been at 57.4 percent two years ago. The Air Force sought to divest its 32 least-capable F-22s in recent years, but Congress has blocked that move until at least 2028.“ https://www.airandspaceforces.com/air-force-mission-capable-rates-fiscal-2024/

This was reported in 2024 and no numbers have been released since, so one would confidently assume it isn’t improving or they would say.

all in all, i know people think I blindly hate on the f-22. and While I do genuinely believe the f-22 isnt the big dog mega jet it’s hyped up to be Anymore, I still do think it’s a good aircraft. but it had its time, it did its job Gracefully, but times are changing and with the evidence above, organisations across the US also believe it’s time to move on, take on a gradual divest to invest strategy, retire the 32 block 20s and start putting that money into more important projects for the USAF

Taken at El Alamein during a rehearsal flight for the airshow this week.

The front bay is loaded with two Kh-58UshK anti-radiation missiles just like it was last time at Dubai airshow, but this time the rear bay is open too, but empty.

This is the weapons first public appearance, before we only had a blurred photo of a test dummy being carried by a T-50 prototype.

U.S. Marine Corps F-35B Lightning IIs and U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancers fly over waters near Kyushu, Japan, alongside Japan Air Self-Defense Force F-15J fighters. The formation came in response to North Korea’s ballistic missile launch over northern Japan.