U.S. Air Force Begins Independent Operations of FQ-44A Fury Unmanned Fighter

The U.S. Air Force has begun conducting independent flights of Anduril’s FQ-44A Fury unmanned fighter jet following the delivery of the first aircraft to the military.

This was reported by Anduril Industries on its official X account.

According to the company, the first Fury CCA was delivered to the U.S. Air Force in August. U.S. military personnel are now flying the aircraft without direct control from Anduril staff.

The Fury was transferred to an experimental unit at Krich Air Base, where military personnel are practicing its use alongside manned aircraft.

Following the transfer of the aircraft, the military began conducting several flights per day with it, while the presence of the company’s specialists at the base was significantly reduced.

In July, the FQ-44A had already undergone testing at Krich Air Base as part of the Agile Combat Employment concept. At that time, a single U.S. Air Force operator was able to launch and recover the drone independently after just a few hours of training.

During these tests, the Fury also flew alongside F-35 fighter jets. However, the F-35 did not directly control the drone—the aircraft operated under the control of its own Mission Autonomy system.

In addition, over the summer, the Fury conducted tests of the full air-to-air engagement sequence: it received an external target designation, processed it through the autonomous Lattice system, and fired an AIM-120 AMRAAM missile.

In September, the U.S. Air Force officially designated the aircraft as the FQ-44 Fury. The second CCA model in the program’s first phase—the FQ-42 from General Atomics—was named Vengeance.

Both aircraft are being developed as part of the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program and are designed to operate alongside manned fighter jets, extending their range, situational awareness, and combat capabilities. The U.S. Air Force plans to have approximately 500 such aircraft by 2032, and eventually, about 1,000.

Earlier, Militarnyi reported that Anduril had already begun serial production of the FQ-44A at its new Arsenal-1 facility in Ohio. The first production aircraft rolled off the assembly line in the summer of 2026.

The FQ-44A has already undergone testing with aerial bombs and other air-to-surface weapons, indicating plans to expand its role beyond aerial combat.