The U.S. Air Force has pushed its Collaborative Combat Aircraft program into operational-style testing at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada, using Anduril’s YFQ-44 Fury and General Atomics’ YFQ-42A Dark Merlin in a multi-day Agile Combat Employment exercise. The event focused on tactics, techniques and procedures for manned-unmanned teaming, with multiple sorties, local-airspace integration, simulated missions and reliability checks aimed at shaping fielding decisions and future platform requirements. AFOTEC observers joined the exercise under a faster test model, while allied observers from the Royal Netherlands Air and Space Force tracked the activity. The unit’s task now is to move the CCA effort from development to repeatable operational employment.