The U.S. Air Force has carried out a multi-day operational exercise at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada using the Anduril YFQ-44A Fury, pushing its Collaborative Combat Aircraft programme beyond controlled flight testing. The semi-autonomous aircraft were evaluated in an Agile Combat Employment scenario focused on tactics, procedures and distributed operations, as the service continues to refine how unmanned wingmen would operate alongside manned fighters.
The exercise placed emphasis on reliability, extended range and integration with crewed aircraft across local airspace. That approach is designed to assess how the CCA fleet could function in a more realistic operational environment, rather than in isolated developmental trials. Creech, a hub for remotely piloted and unmanned systems, provided a setting aligned with the programme’s intended mission profile.
The trial period shows the Air Force is moving the CCA effort from concept development into operational test use. The programme remains central to future fighter force structure planning, with semi-autonomous aircraft expected to support manned platforms in distributed air combat operations.