Exclusive: RAF Boss Speeds CCA Plan, Details Combat Fleet Ambition

LONDON—The UK Royal Air Force plans to accelerate development of collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) and field an operational capability before the end of the decade.

Service boss Air Chief Marshal Harv Smyth wants an operational concept demonstrator to be flying alongside a Eurofighter Typhoon as soon as the 2027 edition of NATO’s Steadfast Defender exercise. An operational capability should then be in service before the end of this decade. Smyth wants to see several iterations and enhancements of RAF CCA platforms by the time the Global Combat Air Program (GCAP) fighter enters service in the late 2030s.

The use of CCAs can help transform crewed aircraft capabilities and make them “future-proof,” Smyth told Aviation Week ahead of the Global Air and Space Chiefs Conference and the Farnborough Airshow.

Combining a Typhoon with CCAs, he suggested, could help turn the fourth-generation fighter into a pseudo fifth-generation air system—with “system” being the operative word.

His decision to accelerate the introduction of CCAs is part of Smyth’s broader effort to turn the RAF into what he calls a “sixth-generation” air force. Investments in human and machine teaming, edge computing, artificial intelligence and CCAs will “fundamentally change the concept of operations and how we do control of the air,” he said.

The added pace was made possible through the formal launch of the CCA program with £300 million ($400 million) included in the Defense Investment Plan (DIP) which the UK government published at the end of June. Prior to the DIP, the RAF’s CCA developments appeared poised to be delayed until the mid-2030s in alignment with GCAP. 

Smyth concluded, however, that lessons from Ukraine and the advancement in AI and autonomy mean the capability is needed today and that the technology exists to deliver such a system this decade. Securing the CCA funding was a “big win,” he said, and allows the RAF to begin working on a CCA program roughly a decade earlier than originally envisaged.

Smyth wants to see a platform that could be delivered by UK industry, and not just major primes but with small and medium-sized companies.

“If we can get our Royal Air Force ‘kitemark’ on it and prove it as a viable capability within the near term, there’s also a very real possibility we can export it and use it as an engine for growth for the UK’s brilliant aerospace industry, like we have achieved in the past with Hawk, Tornado and Typhoon,” Smyth said.

Plans for the CCAs will also underpin a refreshed UK combat air strategy, which Smyth has commissioned. A first iteration of the document is due to be published in the fall. 

The most recent strategy came out in 2018 and led to the development of the Future Combat Air System and subsequently GCAP. “The world has changed a lot since then,” Smyth said. The new document is set to better define the crewed-uncrewed mix the RAF requires, not only for the current fleet of fighters but also toward GCAP too. Smyth suggested that, in the 2030s, the optimum “high-low mix” could be a four-to-five-CCA package operating ahead of a Eurofighter, allowing that crewed fighter to sit back from the action and act as a battle-space manager, or “quarterback.”

Smyth said the RAF is willing to take risks to accelerate such programs, particularly if there is a time or operational imperative.

“I'm going to want to spiral the capability and keep going quickly, and be happy to fail in some areas, but I want to adopt a fail-fast approach,” he said.

“We are not looking for perfection in the first iteration,” Smyth said, adding that he wants to see a similar approach as taken by the U.S. Air Force's Century series of fighters that included the F-100 Super Sabre through to the F-106 Delta Dart.

Even as he presses the service to embrace a tech startup fail-early mindset, he argues the RAF has been “inappropriately” been accused of being risk averse. “Actually, in my experience we are incredibly risk aware, and we know how to manage risk against the imperative,” he said. “This is why we are being so successful on both operations, and in capability development and delivery.”

One example, he said, is the recent rapid integration of the BAE Systems APKWS II guided rocket system onto the Eurofighter. It was achieved in just 42 days from initial development to front-line service, despite initial projections the process could take up to two years.

“If it was not for the fact that we were deployed and there was an immediate operational imperative, I think we may have struggled to meet those timelines,” Smyth said.

“The big lesson for defense is that we should not have to wait to be in a shooting war to be able to achieve these great outcomes. We should be able make this business as usual,” he continued.

“That’s my big push in the air force, to inject pace and get ahead of where the adversary is,” Smyth added.

As well as CCAs, the DIP also enables key investments into the front-line combat fleets. Although the Eurofighter Typhoon is due to start being replaced by GCAP in the latter half of the 2030s, the DIP commits the RAF to upgrading the Eurofighter in line with the partner-country Long-Term Evolution effort that takes the system  through a midlife update. Smyth said he needs a “proper overlap” and no “cliff edges” between the withdrawal of the Eurofighter and the initial operational capability of GCAP.

Continuing to develop Eurofighter, “allows me to bridge from that very solid combat air capability into the next,” he said.

F-35 progress update

As for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, Smyth said he is “not happy” about the slow pace of weapon integration, which means the RAF will utilize the RTX Small Diameter Bomb II as an interim stand-off weapon, until MBDA Spear 3 is integrated.

“We need to get better at developing and integrating weapons onto our platform,” Smyth said. “If Ukraine has taught us one thing, it is that pace of delivery to the front line is absolutely key.”

The service remains committed to the introduction of the conventional takeoff-and-landing F-35A for the dual-capable aircraft sub-strategic nuclear mission as announced by Prime Minister Keir Starmer in June 2025. As part of the ongoing Combat Air Strategy refresh, the RAF and the Royal Navy will explore the optimum mix of F-35A and B model aircraft. One factor in those deliberations is a near-term imperative to integrate CCAs onto the Queen Elizabeth Class carriers, as the Royal Navy moves rapidly towards its “hybrid Navy” construct, which includes a new, ambitious, hybrid airwing. The concept is supposed to enable the service to project more affordable mass from the the ships through the next decade.

Beyond combat aircraft, Smyth also wants to strengthen the RAF's enabling capabilities and is looking forward to entry into service of the Boeing E-7 Wedgetail airborne early warning aircraft. The three-aircraft fleet should be flying operational missions by summer 2027, he indicated. The first of the fleet has arrived at RAF Lossiemouth, Scotland, for test and evaluation. It will be joined by the second aircraft in the fall and the third in early 2027.

Acquisition of additional aircraft, a recommendation spelled out in last year's Strategic Defense Review, remains an aspiration for now, Smyth said.

“We know that we need more than three if we are to appropriately defend UK airspace, particularly given the threat we see from Russia,” he said.

Procurement of more aircraft will be a “discussion for future spending and defense reviews,” he added. The RAF is also looking at space-based airborne moving target indicator as part of a layered approach to airspace surveillance.

Boom time

The RAF wants to expand its aerial refueling capability, Smyth said, by adopting boom and drogue-equipped tankers. After decades of relying on a probe and drogue-refueling alone, Smyth said the RAF is now exploring options with Airtanker, the operator of the service’s Airbus A330 Multi-Role Tanker Transports, to install an aerial refueling boom. It would give the service the ability to refuel platforms including the Boeing C-17, P-8 Poseidon, E-7, and the RC-135 Rivet Joint, as well as the new F-35As and the fighter that emerges from GCAP. 

“It is a capability we know we really need, especially as more and more of our fleet require a boom vice a drogue to conduct air refueling,” Smyth said.

The RAF also wants to grow its role in space, noted Smyth, who was the RAF’s first Director of Space in 2020. As detailed in the DIP, Smyth said the service is  “significantly pivoting” from space domain awareness to space control. The service has access to “very unique” and “niche” classified capabilities that have been used to great effect, he said, noting these would be scaled further through the DIP. The service will also set up six dedicated space squadrons, a new component command and a space defense center from where space control missions can be operated.

Smyth said the service is now adapting into a mindset for what he refers to as “transition to conflict,” and testing and proving out new concepts including agile combat employment to achieve combat capability through dispersion.

For Smyth, all these initiatives form part of a broader ambition—to make the RAF Europe's first sixth-generation air force.

“It would be great if we could be the first to do that in Europe, because I think when you're a first, others will follow,” he said. “The RAF has a very proud history of leading the way, and I am determined to continue in that vein.”