US Air Force generates daily YFQ-44A sorties in second CCA exercise

Control of the US Air Force’s uncrewed combat aircraft programme is shifting from engineers to aircrews. Anduril Industries has announced the completion of a second Collaborative Combat Aircraft exercise conducted with the Experimental Operations Unit of Air Combat Command. According to the company, the YFQ-44A prototype flew daily mission-autonomy sorties directed by operational users for the first time, with several days producing more than one sortie.

A warfighter at the controls, not a test pilot

The Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) programme sits at the centre of the US Air Force’s future air power architecture. The concept envisages a fleet of comparatively affordable semi-autonomous aircraft flying alongside crewed fighters such as the F-22 and F-35, taking on strike, reconnaissance and electronic warfare tasks. The service has set a stated target of at least 1,000 CCAs.

The decisive question for the programme is not whether the aircraft flies, but whether it can be absorbed into the daily rhythm of an operational air base. The Experimental Operations Unit (EOU) was stood up in 2024 precisely to answer that. Its task is to write the playbook of tactics, techniques and procedures for CCA employment. During the first exercise at Edwards Air Force Base in April 2026, EOU personnel handled pre- and post-flight checks, weapons loading and unloading, and mission tasking for the YFQ-44A at a simulated forward operating base.

EOU commander Lt Col Matthew Jensen summarised the approach at the time: every sortie generated and flown was carried out by a warfighter kicking the tyres of the prototype, rather than by an engineer or a test pilot.

The latest event extends that logic. In July 2026 a YFQ-44A took part in an Agile Combat Employment exercise at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada, testing whether the type can be sustained from dispersed locations. Anduril’s assessment is that the exercise offers tangible evidence that the operational procedures and the trust required to field the FQ-44 at scale are taking shape.

The YFQ-44A and its competitors

Anduril’s YFQ-44A and General Atomics’ YFQ-42A are the first two CCA candidates the Air Force placed under evaluation, both having flown for the first time in 2025. Northrop Grumman’s Talon design was subsequently described by the service as a strong contender for a later increment and given the YFQ-48A designation.

One measure of the YFQ-44A’s maturity arrived in July 2026, when the aircraft conducted the programme’s first live air-to-air missile firing. An uncrewed platform employing a weapon against an airborne target using its own sensors and mission software marks the point at which the loyal wingman concept leaves the laboratory.

Sustainment and cost are the real test

Scalability, rather than technical performance, dominates the debate around CCA. A fleet of a thousand aircraft only makes sense if unit cost stays far below that of a fighter and if sustainment can be handled by a small cadre of specialists. That is why EOU exercises measure far more than flight performance: how many people are needed to turn an aircraft around, how long that takes, what maintenance infrastructure is required and how far the type can be supported from austere forward bases all go into the record.

Generating more than one sortie a day is therefore more than a statistic. It indicates that an uncrewed combat platform is approaching the tempo standard expected of a crewed squadron.

Why it matters beyond the United States

Türkiye stands at a comparable threshold in this field. Baykar’s Kızılelma and Turkish Aerospace’s ANKA-3 are both positioned as jet-powered uncrewed platforms intended to operate alongside crewed fighters, with flight testing under way and weapons integration milestones announced publicly.

The instructive element of the American experience is institutional rather than technical. Instead of keeping prototypes inside the test establishment, the Air Force has opened them to operational units early, so that tactics and procedures are written before the system enters service. The judgement that the real bottleneck lies in doctrine and personnel structures rather than in the airframe applies to every country running a comparable programme.