Anduril’s CCA Makes First Flight; YFQ-44A Flies Semi-Autonomously

Anduril Industries’ YFQ-44A Collaborative Combat Aircraft took to the sky Oct. 31, the Air Force announced. The service also confirmed that a production decision on the CCA program is still expected in fiscal 2026, despite the ongoing government shutdown.

In a release announcing the first flight, the Air Force did not release much detail about what the YFQ-44A did, how long it flew, or where it concluded. In its own release, Anduril touted the fact that the flight was semi-autonomous—meaning “no operator with a stick and throttle flying the aircraft behind the scenes,” it said. Rather, the aircraft is monitored by an operator who can direct actions “at the push of a button.”

Air Force Secretary Troy E. Meink, in a post on the social media site X, said the flight marked “continued progress” with the CCA program and shows “how competition drives innovation and accelerates delivery.”

“It also gives us the hard data we need to shape requirements, reduce risk, and ensure the CCA program delivers combat capability on a pace and scale that keeps us ahead of the threat,” Meink added in another post.

Anduril’s emphasis on its semi-autonomous first flight approach differs from General Atomics, which is also competing for “Increment 1” of the CCA program. That company’s YFQ-42A flew for the first time Aug. 27, operated from a ground station. The plan is for CCAs to be semi-autonomous, commanded by pilots in manned fighters flying alongside them. General Atomics has said it started flying with a ground control station as part of a “crawl, walk, run” approach to avoid unnecessary risk and start collecting data as quickly as possible.

An Air Force press release noted that both of the uncrewed craft went from concept to first flight in less than two years.

Anduril flew the YFQ-44A from its facilities at the Southern California Logistics Airport—the former George Air Force Base—in Victorville, Calif. That’s not far from Edwards Air Force Base, where much of the CCA test program is expected to be executed.

Jason Levin, Anduril’s senior vice president of engineering for air dominance and strike, said in a written statement that flight testing “is where we prove that our aircraft meets the mark in terms of speed, maneuverability, autonomy, stealth, range, weapons systems integration, and more. As YFQ-44A climbs higher, we’re proving that it doesn’t merely look like a fighter, but that it performs like one.” He said the time interval between “clean-sheet design to wheels-up” was 556 days, “faster than any major fighter aircraft program in recent history.”

He said the drone—which Anduril has dubbed Fury—is the product of “a relentless commitment to simplicity in design and ease of manufacture, and a devotion to doing the hard things first.”

The Air Force, meanwhile, touted the value of developing both the YFQ-42A and YFQ-44A, the service’s first drones to be designated as fighters.

“By advancing multiple designs in parallel, the Air Force is gaining broader insights and refining how uncrewed aircraft will complement crewed fifth-and sixth-generation platforms in future mission environments,” the service said in a press release.

Developmental flight activities “continue across both vendor and government test locations, including Edwards Air Force Base, where envelope expansion and integration work will inform future experimentation,” the release also stated. The Air Force has stood up an “Experimental Operations Unit,” located at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., which “will be instrumental in evaluating operational concepts as the program transitions from testing to fielding substantial operational capability for Increment 1 before the end of the decade.”

After an initial program of basic handling qualities, both CCAs are expected to swiftly advance to operational testing, including inert and possibly live weapon releases before the conclusion of the Increment 1 competition. The Air Force has consistently left open the door to carrying both Anduril and General Atomics into the production phase of the CCA program. An Increment 2 phase is expected to be launched in 2026, and will be open to other airframe companies not selected in Increment 1.