Image: Anduril ©
The U.S. Air Force’s Experimental Operations Unit (EOU) has completed a second exercise with Anduril’s YFQ-44A Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), marking a further step towards operational fielding of the platform.
The exercise took place last month at Creech Air Force Base, building on an initial EOU exercise held four months earlier at the same site. That first event saw EOU operators launch, recover and sustain YFQ-44A for the first time.
This latest exercise increased task complexity and expanded the responsibilities held by Air Force personnel, as per a recent press statement. EOU operators tasked the aircraft across multiple stages of mission execution from several locations, demonstrating disaggregated control designed to reduce manpower requirements and enable CCA sorties from austere bases.
Operational users also oversaw daily mission autonomy flights with YFQ-44A for the first time, using autonomous systems to execute operationally relevant tactics and manoeuvres throughout the week-long event.
Anduril said the exercise featured high-tempo flight operations, including multiple sorties on several days, highlighting both the aircraft’s maturity and operators’ growing familiarity with the system. The company added: “This latest EOU exercise is tangible evidence that the operational procedures and trust required to field FQ-44 at scale are taking shape.”
The event represents the first of thousands of planned sorties for prototype YFQ-44A and production FQ-44 aircraft at Creech, a base long central to the Air Force’s uncrewed aircraft operations.
Regular experimentation with operational end users remains central to the CCA programme’s goal of delivering combat-credible capability at pace, with further EOU exercises expected in the coming months.
Learn more on Anduril’s website
