Pictured is a U.S. Air Force photo of Anduril Industries’ YFQ-44A prototype in flight.
Last week, the Air Force’s Experimental Operations Unit (EOU) at Nellis AFB, Nev., tested an Anduril Industries YFQ-44A Fury prototype Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), which flew from a company site in southern California to Edwards AFB, Calif., for the testing and back again, Anduril said on Thursday.
The exercise “represents a shift toward the new concept of earlier, operator-driven experimentation to inform tactics and procedures that will accelerate the delivery of this transformative capability to the warfighter,” the Air Force said.
The General Atomics YFQ-42A Dark Merlin CCA prototype is competing against the YFQ-44A prototype for CCA, Increment 1. This year, the Air Force is to choose between one of the above for Increment 1 and to begin development of CCA Increment 2.
Regarding last week’s YFQ-44A testing, Anduril said that “the EOU led end-to-end operations” for daily Fury sorties that led to Air Force personnel “garnering vital first-hand experience launching, recovering, and turning the aircraft.”
“The EOU took over tasks that Anduril personnel once led, including pre and post-flight checks and clearances, weapons loading and unloading, and direct tasking of the air vehicle during taxi and flight,” according to Anduril.
The Air Force said that the “hands-on testing is a cornerstone of the Air Forces’ strategy to field combat-ready, uncrewed airpower at speed and scale by breaking down the barriers between the requirements, acquisition, and operational communities.”
EOU personnel used the company’s Menace-T “ruggedized laptop to upload mission plans, initiate autonomous taxi and takeoff, task the aircraft while in flight, and manage post-flight data ingestion and checks,” according to Anduril. “That enabled the EOU to conduct operations out of a simulated forward operating base, successfully launching, recovering, and turning YFQ-44A without the infrastructure of a large, established base. What previously required fixed infrastructure could now be managed through two Pelican cases and a laptop.”
“From automated software checks that streamline manpower and training requirements, to the aircraft’s simple hardware design, YFQ-44A was designed to be easy to maintain with a small crew,” Anduril said. “During the exercise, a handful of EOU maintainers with just days worth of training were able to easily turn YFQ-44A between sorties, proving that the aircraft requires just a fraction of the manpower footprint of traditional UAVs.”
The Northrop Grumman YFQ-48A Talon Blue is the third CCA prototype to gain an Air Force designation and is a likely competitor in Increment 2.
The Air Force has said that there are nine vendors for Increment 2, but the service has not identified the companies. CCA flights by the EOU are to lead to requirements for Increment 2 of the program.
A version of this story originally appeared in sister publication Defense Daily.
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