Boeing subsidiary Spirit Defense will support General Atomics Aeronautical Systems’ production of the FQ-42 Vengeance Collaborative Combat Aircraft for the U.S. Air Force. Spirit Defense will act as the fuselage design-build partner from engineering through manufacturing, using its Wichita, Kansas, operations to add capacity and strengthen supply-chain resilience as the Air Force expands its autonomous combat-aircraft fleet.
The partnership is intended to accelerate production, increase industrial depth and reduce reliance on a single manufacturing site. Spirit Defense’s involvement began before Boeing completed its acquisition of Spirit AeroSystems in December 2025; the companies’ work on the programme dates to 2022.
The FQ-42 is one of two designs selected for production under the Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft programme, alongside Anduril’s FQ-44 Fury. The first production increment covers 150 aircraft across both designs, while the service is pursuing a broader fleet of 500 combat-ready CCAs by 2032.
GA-ASI has previously indicated that it could produce six FQ-42 aircraft per month, although no increase to that rate has been confirmed. Financial terms, fuselage quantities and delivery schedules were not disclosed. Government production funding has remained constrained by a continuing resolution, with GA-ASI using internal funds to begin FQ-42 production.