Anduril’s YFQ-44A Fury Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) has already flown in formation alongside F-35 fighters during U.S. Air Force testing, company executives have revealed, offering the clearest indication yet that live manned-unmanned teaming work with the fifth-generation fighter is underway.
The disclosure came during a briefing by Anduril executives Jason Levin, senior vice president for Air Dominance and Strike, and Aaron Simpson, vice president for Strategy for Air Dominance and Strike, at the Air & Space Forces Air, Space and Cyber Symposium that TWZ is attending. The executives said the Fury flew alongside F-35s during a July exercise conducted with the Air Force’s Experimental Operations Unit (EOU) at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada.
“We’ve already started flying in formation alongside manned. I can even say fifth-gen fighters. F-35,” Levin said.
The testing is an important step toward the Air Force’s broader vision for its Collaborative Combat Aircraft program, in which relatively inexpensive autonomous aircraft are intended to operate alongside and support manned fighters in contested airspace.
The executives stressed, however, that the F-35 was not yet controlling the Fury during those flights.
“But they’re not controlling it from the manned fighter yet,” Levin said. “Not yet.”
Instead, the July testing involved Fury operating under its Mission Autonomy system while sharing airspace with crewed fighters, other CCAs, and other aircraft. Anduril says Air Force personnel were able to operate the autonomy system without Anduril personnel directly running the aircraft, although company personnel remained on site in a supporting role.
The company described the progression toward direct manned-unmanned teaming as a “crawl, run, build-up” process.
A YFQ-44A Fury aircraft assigned to the Collaborative Combat Aircraft Experimental Operations Unit taxis toward a sunshade at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada, July 20, 2026. The CCA took part in an Agile Combat Employment exercise that provided information necessary to validate the reduced logistical footprint required to operate in remote, forward-deployed locations. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Renee Blundon)
Anduril says it has already begun work on what it calls “quarterback integration,” referring to the ability for a crewed aircraft to direct or task autonomous aircraft. That work has been conducted in hardware-in-the-loop and software-in-the-loop environments as well as on the Fury itself.
“Most of those events will be coming up here in a matter of weeks or months,”
Levin said when asked about the timeline for the first quarterback integration with Fury.
Asked whether those events would involve live flying, the answer was unequivocal: “Yes.”
Exactly how an F-35 would control Fury remains part of that ongoing development effort. The executives pointed to work involving integration of the appropriate human-machine interfaces, primarily including tablet-based control from the crewed fighter, at least at first.
The distinction between flying alongside an F-35 and being controlled by an F-35 is important. The former demonstrates that Fury’s aircraft and autonomy systems can operate safely in the same battlespace as a fifth-generation fighter. The latter would represent a much more significant demonstration of the operational concept behind CCAs: allowing a single crewed fighter to employ and manage additional autonomous aircraft as part of a larger force.
A U.S. Airman assigned to the Collaborative Combat Aircraft Experimental Operations Unit loads an inert missile onto a YFQ-44A Fury aircraft at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada, July 20, 2026. The data from the exercise will be used to develop and refine new tactics, techniques, and procedures for semi-autonomous air operations when deployed from main operating bases. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Renee Blundon)
Anduril’s July testing went beyond simple formation flying. The company said Fury was conducting Mission Autonomy flights using live sensor data and was operating in airspace shared with crewed fighters and other CCAs. Air Force operators reportedly conducted both relatively basic route and pattern work and more representative tactical scenarios.
The Fury’s work with the Air Force’s Experimental Operations Unit has progressed through two increasingly ambitious phases. During the first exercise in April at Edwards Air Force Base, Air Force personnel were trained to operate the aircraft and were able to launch and recover it using Anduril’s compact Menace-T setup, essentially a pair of ruggedized cases and a laptop rather than a conventional ground-control station.
By the second exercise, conducted at Creech in July, the Air Force had reduced the manpower and infrastructure required further. A single EOU operator could launch and recover the aircraft after only hours of training, while Air Force personnel independently operated Fury’s Mission Autonomy. The aircraft also flew in airspace shared with other CCAs, while the exercise demonstrated disaggregated operations and a rapid “hot reload” in which two operators replaced an AIM-120 AMRAAM with the engine running, reducing the turnaround between sorties to single-digit minutes.
The July exercise also included a live weapons demonstration that Anduril characterized as a complete end-to-end kill chain rather than simply a captive-carry or basic weapons-release test. The Fury launched from Edwards with a single operator and received a track generated by an external source over a beyond-line-of-sight connection.
That track was ingested by Anduril’s Lattice AI-infused autonomy software system, after which the operator tasked the aircraft to engage. Fury then launched an AIM-120 AMRAAM and guided the weapon to the target. Anduril described the test as demonstrating the complete kill chain from offboard targeting information, through the aircraft’s mission systems and operator tasking, to an actual air-to-air weapons engagement.
Top Photo: A U.S. Air Force YFQ-44A Fury aircraft, assigned to the Collaborative Combat Aircraft Experimental Operation Unit, takes off for a mission flight during an Agile Combat Employment exercise at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada, July 21, 2026. The flight was part of a broader ACE exercise designed to test the resilience, adaptability, and combat effectiveness of the semi-autonomous fleet. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Kristal Munguia)
Source: The War Zone