General Atomics’ XFQ-42A and Anduril’s XFQ-44A collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) are on display in full-scale form for the first time at the 2025 Paris Air Show as the two companies are vying to win a U.S. Air Force (USAF) contract. In April, the USAF downselected the companies to design, manufacture, and test production-representative uncrewed aircraft for Increment 1 of its CCA program.
Large numbers of CCAs—also referred to as loyal wingmen, adjuncts, or remote carriers—are envisioned by the USAF to support crewed fighters, including fifth-generation warplanes such as the F-35 and F-22 and the forthcoming sixth-generation F-47 Next Generation Air Dominance aircraft that Boeing is developing.
CCAs can act as force multipliers, bringing additional combat mass to the battlespace at relatively low cost. They can also act as extra eyes and ears to improve overall situational awareness and to protect forces through defense suppression and electronic warfare.
General Atomics’ offering, based on the company’s Gambit family of CCA designs, is similar in configuration to the XQ-67A Offboard Sensing Station (OBSS) UAV, which flew last year and acted as a prototype for the YFQ-42A. Further systems have been tested on the company’s MQ-20 Avenger jet-powered uncrewed aircraft. On May 7, the first YFQ-42A began ground tests, with the aim of performing a first flight this summer.
While General Atomics is known for its many years of building uncrewed air vehicles, primarily the Predator and Reaper series, Anduril is not so well-known, although it has developed a range of autonomous air systems. The company has focused on driving out unnecessary complexities from the YFQ-44A Fury design, resulting in a modular vehicle that is optimized for large-scale production at low cost. Notably, it began ground testing last month.
Fury uses off-the-shelf components, including the powerplant from a business jet, and simple component designs that a wide range of suppliers can easily produce. Open-source architecture allows the Fury to be configured for different missions and with different payloads. It also provides for different customer nations to install their own sovereign capabilities.