To lay the groundwork for the U.S. Air Force’s Combat Collaborative Aircraft (CCA) program, which will explore tactical human-machine teaming concepts, the service will be giving select F-16 Viper fighter jets the ability to fly themselves. Dubbed Project Viper Experimentation and Next-Gen Operations Mode (VENOM), the initiative will outfit six F-16s from Eglin Air Force Base in Florida with autonomy agents that a human pilot will experiment with in flight. The hope is that the project will allow the Air Force to assess how it can best bridge autonomous and crewed formations while building trust in the autonomy. This is...