CCA Testing Kickstarts Next Generation of Air Dominance

In a little over a year since the program’s announcement, two prototypes of Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) have started ground testing and are expected to fly in the coming months. The achievement marks an impressive timeline for the aircraft’s development, which is designed to be an unmanned platform that will fly in tandem with, and in support of, manned platforms like the F-22, F-35 and the future B-21 and F-47. While the two prototype CCAs, being produced by Anduril and General Atomics respectively, will eventually be down-selected to one platform, they are expected to be a force multiplier for the warfighter by bringing a futuristic vision of manned-unmanned teaming to air warfare. 

In this episode of "The Elara Edge," Lt Gen (Ret) David "Abu" Nahom breaks down the rapid development of the United States Air Force's Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) and the significance of manned-unmanned teaming in bringing about the next generation of air dominance. 

As the Executive Director of Elara Nova's new Aeronautics and Mission Systems sector, Gen Nahom will oversee an expansion of Elara Nova's consulting expertise into air domain technologies such as the CCA program. Prior to his current role, Gen Nahom's 36-year Air Force career culminated with roles such as Commander, Alaskan Command; Alaskan NORAD Region; and Eleventh Air Force.

"The Elara Edge" is hosted by Scott King and produced by Regia Multimedia Services. The full story can be found on Elara Nova's Insights page here. Music was produced by Patrick Watkins of PW Audio.

Transcript

Host: Scott King 

SME: Lt Gen (Ret) David Nahom, Executive Director of Elara Nova Aeronautics and Missions Systems 

00:02 - 01:29 

Two prototypes of the Collaborative Combat Aircraft, or CCAs, have started ground testing and are expected to fly in the coming months. This comes after the United States Air Force first announced the program a little over a year and a half ago. The achievement marks an impressive timeline for the aircraft’s development, which is designed to be an unmanned platform that will fly in tandem with, and in support of, manned platforms like the F-22, F-35 and the future B-21 and F-47. While the two prototype CCAs, being produced by Anduril and General Atomics respectively, will eventually be down-selected to one platform, they are expected to be a force multiplier for the warfighter by bringing a futuristic vision of manned-unmanned teaming to air warfare. 

Welcome to the Elara Edge. Today’s episode on Collaborative Combat Aircraft, coincides with the launch of a new business sector within Elara Nova: Aeronautics and Mission Systems or AMS. Joining us today is the executive director of AMS: retired Lt Gen David Nahom. General Nahom previously served for 36 years with the United States Air Force, which culminated in high-profile positions such as Commander of Alaskan Command; Alaskan NORAD Region; and the Eleventh Air Force. 

Together, we’ll break down how CCA testing marks the beginning of a next generation of air dominance for the United States Air Force, before learning more about the vision of Elara Nova’s new AMS team.  

Sir, welcome to the show! 

01:30 - 01:31 

Thank you. Great to be here.  

01:31 - 01:50 

Now, the CCA program is a revolutionary approach that - once adopted - is projected to significantly change how the Air Force operates.  

But as we get started here: can you introduce our audience what CCAs are and what role they intend to serve in supporting military operations for the Air Force? 

01:52 - 03:21 

CCAs are going to, over the years, they are going to take on many forms. But it's essentially an uncrewed vehicle that's going to collaborate, maybe with other uncrewed vehicles. But initially we're talking about collaborating with manned crewed vehicles. In basic terms, you'd have a fighter or some other kind of manned craft with one or many unmanned aircrafts that it that it's working in collaboration with. 

You're going to have a family of systems to get after the next generation of air dominance: the ability to ensure we have freedom of the skies. And it's going to take more than just manned platforms.  

There's going to have to be unmanned platforms to do things, to be in places that you wouldn't necessarily want to put a manned platform. And that would be because of the threat, or because you want to get the numbers up because these unmanned vehicles are apparently going to come in at a much lower price point. 

So you could have many more of them airborne, complicating an enemy's decisions, as well as adding things like additional missiles or adding some kind of electronic attack or any number of things, a sensor as part of a mesh network. There's any number of things an unmanned vehicle could do as part of a family of systems. 

And truly, it's about making sure that we have freedom of the skies. As we look into recent history with what's going on in Russia [and] Ukraine, you see the results of not having freedom in the skies in both the Ukrainians and the Russians are certainly paying the price for not having that. 

And then even more recently, you see what freedom of the skies does for an event like Iran, with Israel and certainly our bomber aircraft as well when you have freedom of maneuver in the skies. It certainly changes the nature of war. 

03:22 - 03:30 

With that in mind, Sir, can you elaborate on some of the advantages these manned- unmanned teaming platforms, like CCAs, will bring to the fight? 

03:31 - 04:13 

In its cheapest form, the uncrewed unmanned platform could be attritable. Maybe we don't care that it comes back. It could be where you can put many of them up, with a single person and a single platform controlling them, where you can do other things like have additional missiles, additional sensors, additional electronic attack complicating the enemy's decisions. There's all kinds of advantages to having that kind of a network airborne. In some of these locations where you're going to put a platform, you wouldn't necessarily want to have a person in there because it could be a great risk. 

And, as well as, manned platforms are expensive because you have to do things like, provide for life support for the person in the platform, whereas in an unmanned platform, you certainly save weight and money by not having to do that.

04:14 - 04:20 

Do we know which aircraft CCAs will fly with? And what would that collaborative relationship look like in a warfighting scenario? 

04:21 - 05:06 

I think you're going to see all modern aircraft have some ability to collaborate and certainly the Air Force is doing tests on all different kinds of aircraft. What was announced very recently was that the Air Force is intending on using the F-22, for the initial test with collaborative combat vehicles. 

That makes a lot of sense because that is our air dominance platform right now is the F-22 and it will be for the next decade as we wait for the F-47 to come on and take over that role. Certainly you'll see F-35s, and you'll see other platforms be able to collaborate with these uncrewed platforms potentially someday, maybe not even a flying platform. 

Maybe it collaborates from a ground position, a ship, maybe a large surveillance plane. There could be all kinds of ways that you could collaborate with these unmanned platforms that's not necessarily an air-to-air fighter. 

05:07 - 05:17 

Now, the CCA program is being developed in Increments. These two prototypes are part of Increment 1. Can you describe what the requirements are for Increment 1 and its current status today? 

05:18 - 06:20 

Well, there's still a lot of unknowns. The two companies that were selected to compete were Anduril and General Atomics. They're just completing their prototypes and they’re just starting their testing and that starts in the lab and it goes to the ground and then goes in the air and they're progressing. I believe they're starting to fly this summer.   

From what I read, which is all, as I'm retired now, most of what I read is open source. Both companies are doing well, and they're both just phenomenal technological advancements - both aircraft. And it's just going to be fascinating to watch, as they get airborne in the air space and the test community starts integrating these aircraft and to see which one is most suitable to be that Increment one CCA platform. 

And then there will be a further down-select to one of those aircraft. Probably, from what I understand, in the next 6 to 8 months. Now, those dates always move a little bit. But it'll be fascinating to watch as these aircraft get flying and integrating and as they do the work out West to which aircraft is going to be most suitable for Increment one and the objectives and the challenges that the Air Force is trying to solve right now.

06:21 - 06:25 

And Sir, what can we anticipate about the upcoming Increment 2 requirements? 

06:26 - 07:52 

It's still a little bit early. I've heard a lot of statements out of the Air Force about what they're looking at and I know the data is already out to the companies, and so they're looking at it and without going into details about the data, I also think some of that is going to be informed by what they see in Increment 1 in the testing.  

I don't know that for sure. Again, I'm on the outside looking in. But certainly if they learned some things that work and don't work in Increment 1, it's likely to inform the next Increment before there's a down select to a platform and to a capability. It'll be interesting to see what the price points come in. As a previous Air Force A-8, when I had to balance the POM and balance the books for the Air Force's budget, at times it becomes all about the money, because there is a limit to what the Air Force can and can't do, based on the resources. 

So with Increment 1, as these aircraft come in and they further refine what the price point is, I'm sure that will inform Increment 2, as well. Because [there] may need to be some compromise or some changes to get the numbers because, again, if you look at it like we talked about earlier, if these CCAs, one of the benefits of having CCAs is being able to have those numbers up to complicate the enemy's decision space, to bring other missiles and other sensors airborne, to be able to have those additional aircraft airborne. If they're too expensive and you can't get a number of them airborne. It doesn't seem to be too useful and so I know that the Air Force is very sensitive to that and so it'll be interesting to follow them. 

All my eyes are on Increment one and the competition. Where we’re at we’ll see Anduril and General Atomics going with their two platforms that they've already developed.

07:53 - 08:08 

Now, the CCA program was first announced in January of 2024. That means these prototypes have been designed, developed and have begun testing in a little over a year and a half. 

What does this demonstrate about the progress being made on the CCA program?  

08:09 - 09:03 

In terms of aircraft development, that's lightning fast. The Air Force has stayed true to that this is going to be a very fast development and they want to get these things airborne. The technology is here. These companies can do this. What they're already doing is amazing and the ability to collaborate between manned and unmanned platforms in a meaningful way to achieve an objective that technology is right there in front of us. 

Now we have to just make sure we choose the correct platform and we integrate it into the fleets. As fast as that is going, my hope is that they get through this competition and they get these things developed and they get them out to the field because this technology is game-changing. It really is.  

And having done a lot of air defense, too, if I'm on the other side of this thing and there's a whole wall of aircraft coming at me, and most of them are unmanned, which means there's a level of risk that unmanned platforms are able to take. This is very complicated. And so, if we're able to achieve this, which I know we are, and we're able to do it in very short order - it's going to be a game changing. 

09:04 - 09:08 

And Sir, when you say that the technology is here. Can you elaborate on what you mean by that? 

09:09 - 10:19 

Well, if you look at General Atomics, I mean, General Atomics has been flying unmanned platforms for a long time. MQ-1, MQ-9, and many other platforms that they've prepared for, not only the U.S, but many of our partner ally countries as well. This is not something new to General Atomics and the CCA is really just the next evolution of what they've already been doing for years for our nation and some of the things that you go back to 20-25 years ago, and I don’t have the exact date, but when we saw the first bomb on an MQ-1, I think it was a Hellfire. And the world was like, ‘That just changed everything.’ And now think about how we actually used MQ-1s and MQ-9s over the last two decades in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and many of the counter-insurgency fights. 

These things were the critical platforms for both conventional and special operations. So, you think about that company now. Now, they're in this space with the CCA, and it's just to me, it's the next evolution, and certainly Anduril with the Fury - I don't know the particulars.  

Who's got the advantage? What aircrafts better? But there's certain things I'm sure the Air Force is looking at right now. And, they'll make a good down-select, but from what I've read, both just phenomenal aircraft and phenomenal technology. 

10:20 - 10:30 

And on that note: what do you think are some of the lessons learned from the MQ-1 and MQ-9 that the Air Force can apply toward CCAs and similar technology moving forward?

10:31 - 11:26 

Yeah, I think you know, a lot of times we did with uncrewed platforms, we were doing like one pilot-one platform. What you're seeing now with the technology, you're seeing one operator with many platforms and I think that that's part of the evolution.  

Now, whether that person is on the ground, in a ground control station or in the air, in an aircraft controlling it, there certainly is an evolution about having networks of uncrewed vehicles, not just one pilot-one vehicle. 

The other one, obviously, it's a little easier to train now because, when we first were flying uncrewed vehicles, it was very difficult to fly these things in the U.S., in our air route control structure. Now, we actually have proven this a very reliable technology. We've worked with the FAA for certain areas, we can train corridors, etc., and we're able to train and test and develop in ways that were really more difficult in the past.  

So, it's certainly a whole different ball game. When you saw the first MQ-1 to what you're seeing now, and then when you start seeing teams of these together, I think it's going to be just remarkable what they're gonna be able to do. 

11:27 - 11:30 

And Sir, what will the command and control structure look like for CCAs?

  11:31 - 12:06 

I think it's to be determined. I think there's going to be the ability, just like we have ground control stations for many of our uncrewed vehicles, whether that's the RQ-4, the large global Hawks or the MQ-9s, we have these ground control stations that control one vehicle with the ability to control several vehicles in certain circumstances. 

Whether these CCAs will someday be controlled from the ground, from a command and control platform from a fighter, from a bomber. I think the idea is - the answer is ‘Yes. All of the above.’ And to give the combatant commander and the air component commander, the options to do what he or she needs to do to piece this thing together to achieve an objective. 

12:07 - 12:13 

And what role, if any, will emerging technologies like artificial intelligence or machine learning play in CCAs? 

12:14 - 12:47 

As we advance in AI and machine learning, it's going to be a huge part of this - not to take over the mission, but to enhance the mission, to allow the operator of many systems to be able to do many things at once. 

And I think that, certainly, technology is going to have to be able to allow us to do that. Again, these aren't going to be unmanned systems going off and achieving a mission by themselves. These will be certainly controlled by a human, but using AI machine learning is going to allow that human to do more with these platforms and certainly with maybe many more platforms than he or she would have in the past. 

12:48 - 12:55 

Now, moving forward, what are some of the remaining challenges that the Air Force needs to overcome before making CCAs a reality? 

12:56 - 15:38 

You're going to have the same challenges you have with manned platforms. And one of the challenges, especially when you look at some of the most difficult military problems, which really are in the South China Sea. It starts with logistics. Getting an aircraft on a runway or some kind of launch platform, fueled up, armed up, ready to take off, to be in the right position with all the other aircraft so you can synchronize the mission. This is very difficult.  

As you look at the South China Sea and you look at that landscape, it is, what we call ‘The ultimate away game.’ It's great distances between landmasses and we're going to have to go great distances to achieve a military objective. 

This is the reason why we in the Air Force do very large-scale exercises like red flags, where we practice bringing this all together, where the aircraft get airborne, maybe from many different locations. 

They show up at the same piece of sky. It's all coordinated, and you move forward. Now, if you can imagine doing that with unmanned vehicles that are coming from several different locations, this is not going to be an easy undertaking for those that pull this all together and that is going to have to be something that may get into some of the technology of these vehicles. 

The range, the ability to take off from certain locations, smaller runways, maybe runway independent, maybe air launch, all kinds of ways that these collaborative combat vehicles can make their way into the battlespace.  

But so often you see these pictures of crewed-uncrewed teaming, and it shows a battle. It shows them all together. They're operating together. One of the biggest challenges is how did they get there and how did it all come together? This is a challenge with manned vehicles and I think it's going to be an even greater challenge. We have manned-unmanned vehicles together.  

We in the U.S. Air Force do it better than anybody. We will pull it together, it's going to be pulled together and everyone's going to go ‘That’s amazing.’ And they're not going to realize how much work went into actually orchestrating that. And that's why you're seeing some of the moves the Air Force is making. Like setting up a test unit in the Nevada desert, out of Creech, so they can actually start looking at, for lack of a better word, how are we going to ‘operationalize’ this?  

Because I truly believe that's where the hard work, the technology's amazing. The technology is right here. Now, how are we going to actually make this achieve the military objectives we need to achieve? And that's where I think a lot of the work is going to be. 

As well as, a lot of it is the nature of the threat. And certainly I've spent a lot of time in the Pacific looking at the threat, and it's daunting. What the Chinese are building to and what they're prepared to do.  

When you look at the threat, and you look at how difficult it is, there's going to be places you're not going to want to put a manned platform, and having an unmanned platform that could do some of the missions in concert with the manned platforms, that collaboration between manned and unmanned medium and platforms is going to be something that's gonna be quite useful in a high end warfare that you could potentially see in the South China Sea. 

15:39 - 16:02 

And Sir, these challenges also speak to the Air Force’s Agile Combat Employment - or ACE - concept of operations. This is the relatively new approach that was initially unveiled by the service in 2022. 

But for those of our listeners who are not yet familiar with ACE. Can you introduce us to this concept and how CCA’s are in some ways, designed exactly for this type of approach? 

16:03 - 18:44 

Yeah. CCA’s are going to have to fit into how we are actually going to fight because the days of mustering all your aircraft at one location could make you very vulnerable. So as you, as you look at ACE it really is: as we look at how we're going to generate combat power, let's spread out and do this for many locations. 

That sounds really simple. It’s very, very complicated because it splits out maintenance, it splits out spare parts, it splits out key personnel. You know, if you only have a certain amount of pilots in one location and one goes down for an illness, well, how do I get them to their location to get an airplane? 

There's just a lot of challenges with ACE, and we exercise this quite often. We do this, in fact, in July of this year, the Air Force is undergoing an exercise called REFORPAC, which is a large-scale exercise in the Pacific that is using ACE concepts and how we're actually going to employ airpower in a very difficult scenario like a counter-China scenario. 

If you add unmanned vehicles in there, it will complicate it a bit because where are these vehicles launching from? Do they have the same range of the aircraft? Are they air-refuelable? Because very often we take off from the locations and the first thing our aircraft have to do, especially in the South China Sea, is get some gas to get to the fight, they may have to get gas a second time to get to the fight, depending where they're coming from or maybe even a third time.  

Are these vehicles, these CCAs, are they air-refuelable or do they have to be stationed closer or do they come off rails? There's a lot of technology out there, where they’re rail-launched, there's technology where they’re air-launched, comes off large bombers and large aircraft, those are some of the things that will have to be worked out depending on where the Air Force goes. 

Now, the two CCA variants that are competing for the CCA Increment 1 are both, runway-launched, runway-recovered. But then again, where are they going to launch and recover from? Do they have the range to get there? The refueling to get there. Where are the tankers going to be? Again, this is a very complex undertaking to get that beautiful picture that we all see, all the airplanes lined up together doing their mission. 

There's a lot of work, in fact, in large exercises, the ones that I've flown in when we're all lined up and we're ready to go, and you hear the big words on the radio that says “Fights on, fights on.” And the big, large-scale air war is going to go like a red flag - that's usually the easiest part of the day.  

The most difficult part of the day already happened. Getting everyone airborne, getting everyone into the tanker tracks, getting everyone gassed, getting everyone lined up on time. And then once, they say, “Go, go fight.”  It's something, which is something we, we grew up doing in the fighter world, certainly the bomber pilots and all the other support aircraft, as well. 

But, the work to getting there and I believe in ACE, when people come from all different locations with the uncrewed vehicles, it'll be complex. It's absolutely something we can do. But it's something we're gonna have to work out and exercise often.

18:45 - 18:57 

With respect to these large-scale exercises, there’s also the question of how the Air Force intends to integrate CCAs with other operational aircraft across the other services, and even with international partners. 

What would that look like? 

18:58 - 20:24 

And I tell you that's where I think a lot of the work is for the Air Force. Obviously, the industry has got a huge play, whatever company selected and, I can't say enough about the U.S industry and what they are able to do, what they're able to achieve. It's just remarkable.  

But when these things get to the Air Force, how we integrate them, where we integrate them, how we train to this, how we piece this thing together, how do we get all these aircraft lined up in the right place at the right time, so we can achieve our objective? This is going to be a challenge.  

It's a great challenge, though. And I think the Air Force is making all the right steps right now, especially with that training test unit that they're setting up out in the Nevada desert. That's the first step. That's where, when you look at how we take any technology industry gives us and how do we integrate it into the field? 

[It] very often starts in the Nevada desert, and usually with our operational test units that are already there, this is a big step and these are the brightest minds we have in our Air Force, and the Air Warfare Center. And, they will figure out how we're going to integrate it, and then they will train, they will use what they learn and train the field about how this integration is going to work, and then it'll spread out. 

This will be - because this is very different. And it will be a challenge - look at our fighter squadrons in our fighter units around the world, you don't have unmanned platforms parked next to the fighters right now. So how are you gonna get these fighters that are based in Europe, in Alaska and in Japan. How are they going to get to the fight with their unmanned vehicles?  

Piecing that together is going to be one of the challenges, that's gonna be very exciting to watch and work through. And they'll work through it very fast. But there's a lot - it will be a lot of work to do that. 

20:25 - 20:29 

Thank you, Sir. So what's next for the CCA program? What can we expect next? 

20:30 - 22:27 

Yeah. I think we're all watching for the Increment 1 selection. Obviously, also, watching for the Increment 2 and how that develops out. To me, those are probably the two big things right now and I know the industry is watching very closely as well.  

Because beyond Anduril and General Atomics, there're many other companies that are very interested in getting into this space or getting back into this space to develop the next round, and there will be opportunities for  other companies to come in on the following Increments. 

I think that's one of the exciting parts about this. It's not going to be announced like one company, and they will develop these airplanes for the next 10-15-20 years. That was not the intent. And so, it'll be very interesting to watch over the next probably year. 

As well as, it's not just the U.S. Air Force that is interested. There's other services interested, there's other nations interested. So there's going to be opportunities, even the follow on increments, if you look at what the Air Force is looking for, if you look at the problem we're trying to solve in making sure that we can have these next generation air dominance teams, teams of teams, potentially in very faraway places. 

That's not necessarily the same problem set another nation's trying to solve. Maybe what they're looking for is unmanned platforms to team with their manned platforms for homeland defense or a maritime surveillance mission, or there could be a lot of other reasons. So I think there's not only opportunity with technology that the U.S. Air Force is looking at, but there's opportunities for different platforms and different kinds of collaboration for other missions that are out there. 

It may be HA/DR humanitarian assistance/disaster relief, maybe there could be all kinds of ways that manned-unmanned teaming could be applied to different places besides the United States Air Force. And I think that offers a huge opportunity to industry to not only track very closely what's going on in Increment 1, Increment 2, but also for the technology the Air Force is not selecting where could that apply to other places around the world, because I think there's a lot of places that are not going to be looking for exactly what the U.S. Air Force is looking for in this Increment 1 competition.

22:28 - 22:49 

Now, our listeners are used to hearing from Elara Nova on matters related to national security space. 

But today's program has been focused on the air domain. And this coincides with a recent development for Elara Nova that you've been tasked with leading. So, Sir, can you introduce our audience to the goals and objectives of Elara Nova's new business sector: Aeronautics and Mission Systems? 

22:50 - 23:57 

This really came out of a lot of conversations over the last, obviously 4 to 6 months with the Founding Partners. I came onto Elara Nova, several months ago, to help them out with some of the non-space related aspects of some of their contracts.  

I don't have a space background, although I've been in and around the space applications my entire career. So I understand quite a bit what space brings to the battlefield and what we need and don't need in the battle space. 

That said, over the last month or two, there's been a growing demand for what Elara Nova already is providing on the space side in some non-space related areas and so as we bring on the Aeronautics and Mission Systems is that incredible product that Elara Nova is already providing for companies on the space side. 

We can provide the same thing on aeronautics and some of the mission systems and mission applications. And this could be anything from command and control networks, base defense. It could be training systems, in the virtual and the live training systems, there’s many places that we are going to bring the expertise to provide that same incredible product Elara Nova's brought on the space sector to other places, to our other defense partners' needs.

23:58 - 24:06 

And then how does Elara Nova’s expansion with this new AMS sector reflect the inherent interoperability of the air and space domains today?  

24:07 - 24:54 

I think one of the places where it's going to bring us together is a lot of the work the industry is going to be doing in the coming years with Golden Dome. I think you're going to see space and non-space come together. And I think Elara Nova is going to be very well poised to assist companies, and even some of our government partners, on how some of these technologies come together, and where some of these markets are, because if you look at defending the homeland, much of that is going to be space-based. 

Certainly a lot of the sensors. A lot of the networks, a lot of the command control architecture and even some of the interceptors, but a lot of it's going to be in the air domain, as well. There will be sensors and networks that are not in space, as well as the ability to shoot down what could be threatening our nation. 

So I think, when you look at Golden Dome, I think you're seeing an incredible example of space and aeronautics coming together and I think Elara Nova is very well-positioned to assist our clients in that space.  

24:55 - 25:04 

And how can and will Elara Nova’s AMS team support both established and emerging industry partners that are interested in contributing to Air Force programs like the CCA and others like it? 

25:05 - 27:10 

Well certainly with newer industry partners coming on [with] emerging technology, I think we're in a good position to assist them, to show them where the markets are, make the introductions, make the connections, whether it's with the government or with other industry partners that they can marry up with. With some of the more established: certainly, they're always looking for where the next thing is.  

At Elara Nova, we're bringing on the experts, many with very recent military experience and industry experience, that know where some of these markets are and I think we can even help some of these established companies, some of the larger, aerospace industry partners, where the next technology, where the next market is, where the next big bet is. We want to provide the same incredible product that Elara Nova has been providing to their space to their space customers over the last two years.  

One of the first challenges which we've already overcome is assembling the right team, and we're bringing on initially, about ten, just incredible people, men and women, that have established themselves in the military have recently retired, have led at large-scale, have been part of acquisition, have been part of the DC world in terms of how the budgets come together and I think we're going to be in a very good position with our initial customers to provide them that same incredible product that Elara Nova's been known for.  

That's the mark. What Elara Nova has been doing the last two years, is we've got to be able to provide that level of support to our clients. That's what they're expecting, because I believe that's what's going to make us different. There are a lot of other companies out there that can consult and advise.  

We’re gonna be, just like on the space side. we're going to be that next level much with incredible individuals. And, and the ability to get in there, get our hands dirty and help these companies with whatever their needs are, whether it's getting to the next technology, whether it's merging with a larger or smaller company or whether it's the relationships with the government or other nations. We want to make sure we're in a good position. In fact, one of the partners we already brought on the aeronautics side was a recently retired Royal Air Force two-star, just because we want to make sure that we have the ability to get these companies married up with not only other government contacts in the States, but also with other nations, as well. 

27:10 - 27:46 

This has been an episode of The Elara Edge. As a global consultancy and professional services firm focused on helping businesses and government agencies maximize the strategic advantages of the space and aeronautical domains, Elara Nova is your source for expertise and guidance in national security. 

If you liked what you heard today, please subscribe to our channel and leave us a rating. Music for this podcast was created by Patrick Watkins of PW Audio. This episode was edited and produced by Regia Multimedia Services. I’m your host, Scott King, and join us next time at the Elara Edge.