As the U.S. Air Force continues to reshape its vision for the future of air superiority, one element of this new strategy has quickly set itself apart as perhaps the most promising: AI-enabled drones meant to fly and fight on behalf of human pilots, known to many as the Loyal Wingman concept, but known within the Air Force as Collaborative Combat Aircraft, or CCAs. But fielding these platforms in the numbers the Air Force intends to will mean a huge production effort, and in order to keep the cost of that effort down… The U.S. Air Force needs to field new air-to-air missiles for them to carry.