NDIA Air Combat Survivability Division Multi-Systems Survivability Workshop

The NDIA Air Combat Survivability Division will host a 2-day workshop on Multi-Systems Aircraft Combat Survivability at the Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, May 5-6, 2026. While historically, the fundamentals of aircraft combat survivability focused on evaluating a single aircraft’s survivability versus a single threat, the discipline must now expand. The United States is developing new aircraft which bring the ability to cooperate with other air assets, including Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), to fight in the expected threat environment in 2030 and beyond. CCA are uncrewed, autonomous, drones that are designed to fly alongside crewed aircraft costing significantly less and providing greater sensor reach, delivery of weapons at increased ranges, and enhanced protection of the crew controlling the CCA. Thus, survivability analyses must also evolve to include the contribution of these off-board systems both to the survivability of the crewed aircraft-CCA systems and collectively to the entire air battleforce.