AFA 2026 — Air Force leaders and industry players used the first day of the Air and Space Forces Association Warfare Symposium conference here to present the case they’re making progress developing drone wingmen for future combat, including news that the service has begun flight testing with a weapon underwing.
The robotic wingmen, known as Collaborative Combat Aircraft, are “progressing rapidly” through their development, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach said during a keynote address Monday. “The development teams are moving much faster than a traditional program.”
Wilsbach revealed, for example, that a drone under development by Anduril, dubbed the YFQ-44A, has begun flight experiments carrying a munition known as captive carry testing, which an Air Force press release said in this case used an inert AIM-120 AMRAAM missile.
“This milestone represents a deliberate step forward in integrating CCA into the Air Force’s future force design,” the Air Force’s release says. “Captive carry testing with inert weapons evaluates the aircraft’s ability to safely carry external stores, validates structural integrity and aerodynamic performance, and confirms compatibility between the aircraft and its weapons systems prior to any live employment considerations.
“Throughout development and testing, a human retains authority over weapons release decisions. CCA is designed to operate within established command structures and legal frameworks that govern all Air Force weapons systems,” the release adds.
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Anduril executive Jason Levin said in an October briefing with reporters that the company had started weapons integration on the drone also known as the Fury, and that a live shot is planned this year. Additionally, Levin, Anduril’s senior vice president of engineering, air dominance and strike, said the firm will also begin working with the Air Force to develop tactics for the YFQ-44A, conduct autonomous flights with multiple drones as well as with crewed fighter, and operate outside of test locations for the first time.
“In close partnership with the U.S. Air Force, we have begun a planned series of flight tests with YFQ-44A involving the captive carriage of inert training munitions. This marks a deliberate, responsible, and necessary step in the aircraft’s development,” Anduril said in a statement following news of the captive carry testing.
The Air Force’s weapons integration announcement conspicuously did not mention its other drone prototype under development, the YFQ-42A manufactured by General Atomics, which was the first of the two take flight.
An Air Force spokesperson said in a statement that the Anduril and General Atomics drone bids “are proceeding with their planned weapons integration testing. The YFQ-44A has entered captive-carry flights, while the YFQ-42A is expected to begin this same phase in the very near future.”
In a statement to Breaking Defense, General Atomics spokesman C. Mark Brinkley did not comment on the drone’s testing schedule, but said the company “has been integrating weapons for decades. We’ve fired air-to-ground missiles, air-to-air missiles, bombs of various sizes, loitering munitions, and air-launched effects. Weapons from the wings and weapons from the internal bay. No one wonders if we can put steel on target. General Atomics is the most lethal uncrewed aircraft company in the world. That’s not changing.”
General Atomics took the opportunity earlier Monday to make its own small CCA news, unveiling the name Dark Merlin for the YFQ-42A.
Northrop Grumman, whose Talon drone was surprisingly revealed as the YFQ-48A and characterized as a “strong contender in the CCA program” by the Air Force in December, made similar news. In a press release Monday, Northrop said it has designated its YFQ-48A as the “Talon Blue,” which now forms part of a larger “portfolio of modular, cost-effective and rapidly deployable aircraft that meet the customers’ autonomy needs.”
Kratos As Drone “Merchant Supplier”
Meanwhile, mid-size defense firm Kratos sees a new role as a “merchant supplier” of drones to defense primes or new companies specializing in mission systems, its CEO Eric DeMarco said during an earnings call on Monday evening.
“We are kind of sort of turning into the merchant supplier of tactical jet drones because we’re the only guy that has anything flying right now,” he said. “You’ve got some of these new guys that have done a few flights. Ours have been flying since 2019, 2015 on the Mako. And since we’re the only guy, the mission system companies are coming to us. And if the mission system guys want to be prime and that means we can sell more airplanes faster, that’s what we’re going to do.”
One example of a more established defense company partnering with Kratos on a CCA program is the Marine Corps’ Marine Air-Ground Task Force Uncrewed Expeditionary Tactical Aircraft (MUX TACAIR), which was won by a Northrop Grumman-Kratos team proposing Kratos’s unmanned XQ-58 Valkyrie coupled with Northop’s Prism open architecture software for autonomy.
“Northrop Grumman has certain mission systems that are fantastic, and they have been working on these and investing in these specifically related to the Valkyrie for a long, long time, and they expect to continue to do that going forward,” DeMarco said. “We have a strategy here with Northrop relative to the Valkyrie that goes far beyond the Marine Corps. And very candidly, I believe our probability of win, of winning at all is much higher with Northrop as the prime than if Kratos was the prime.”
DeMarco declined to comment on Kratos’ potential roles in the second increment of the Air Force’s CCA program and the Navy’s CCA program.
