General Atomics’ YFQ-42A UCAV Begins Flight Testing

A YFQ-42A Collaborative Combat Aircraft takes off during testing. Image: Courtesy photo, U.S. Department of Defense

General Atomics press release

The YFQ-42A Collaborative Combat Aircraft, designed and developed by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI), is now conducting flight testing in coordination with the U.S. Air Force. This historic achievement continues the company’s rapid creation of new, jet-powered uncrewed platforms chartered by the U.S. Air Force (USAF) to achieve air dominance while being designed for rapid production, in large quantities, at an affordable price.

“What a great moment for the U.S. Air Force and for GA-ASI,” said GA-ASI President David R. Alexander. “It’s been our collaboration that enabled us to build and fly the YFQ-42A in just over a year. It’s an incredible achievement and I salute the Air Force for its vision and I salute our development team for delivering yet another historic first for our company.”

The YFQ-42A is GA-ASI’s newest uncrewed jet, focused on air-to-air semi-autonomous operation and based on the genus-species concept pioneered on the XQ-67A Off-Board Sensing Station (OBSS). Using state-of-the-art, model-based digital engineering, GA-ASI was able to accelerate its schedule while optimizing air dominance capabilities. YFQ-42’s autonomy core has been trained across more than five years of flight testing using GA-ASI’s jet-powered MQ-20 Avenger®, an aircraft no other company has. The integrated capabilities of a stealthy, air-to-air-focused uncrewed jet, combined with a learned AI autonomy core, provide warfighters with a definitive advantage in the future fight.

The GA-ASI program has focused on creating a high-rate production environment that enables USAF to reach its goal of producing more than 1,000 CCAs on an accelerated timeline. Ground testing for YFQ-42A began in May.

To read more about this story, please click here

And to read more about American and Chinese UCAVs, please click here.




Newsletter Sign up

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
Name(Required)