Air Force crews flew Anduril’s YFQ-44A Fury through a series of sorties at Edwards Air Force Base, California, in an exercise the service announced on 16 April 2026. It was the first time the Experimental Operations Unit, which writes the tactics for the Air Force’s drone wingmen, ran the aircraft itself.
Every sortie was flown “with a warfighter, not an engineer”, said Lt. Col. Matthew Jensen, the unit’s commander. Anduril technicians were still there: the Air Force’s own photos show them working on the aircraft beside airmen.
Airmen did the pre-flight checks, handled inert missiles, started the autonomous taxi and take-off, and gave the aircraft its tasks in flight. Anduril said the ground station, its Menace-T system on a rugged laptop, fitted in two Pelican cases. It also said maintainers learned to turn the aircraft between flights within days.
A small kit matters because the Air Force plans to spread aircraft across small, temporary bases in a war rather than fly from a few large ones. Col. Timothy Helfrich, who buys the service’s fighters, said an 85 percent solution now beats “a 100% solution that never arrives.”
Two months later the competition ended with two winners. On 17 June the Air Force awarded production contracts to Anduril for the FQ-44 and to General Atomics for the FQ-42, four months ahead of schedule. It has classified the values.
Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said the contracts support buying “over 150” combat-capable aircraft by the end of the decade. In September he set a goal of at least 500 by 2032, Air & Space Forces Magazine reported.
In July the Air Force said a YFQ-44A had fired an AIM-120 air-to-air missile at a simulated target, DefenseScoop reported. The unit flew the aircraft again in July at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada, and Anduril delivered an FQ-44 to it there in August.
Both aircraft are due to fly with crewed fighters at the Emerald Flag exercise at Eglin Air Force Base in December, Air & Space Forces Magazine reported.
