The U.S. Air Force has moved its Collaborative Combat Aircraft programme into production, awarding Increment 1 contracts to General Atomics and Anduril for the first FQ-42 and FQ-44 air vehicles.
The awards cover engineering and manufacturing development plus production, and they arrived four months ahead of schedule after both aircraft cleared mission requirements for full-rate manufacturing. The Air Force also dropped the prototype Y prefix, locking in fighter-style designations as it plans to buy more than 150 combat-capable CCAs by the end of the decade.
In parallel, the service split software from hardware, giving mission autonomy production contracts to six companies and six-month competitive awards to Anduril, RTX Collins Aerospace and Shield AI. That architecture points to a faster upgrade path for autonomous tactics and software refreshes across the CCA fleet.