Palmer Luckey’s Anduril Industries has pulled the wraps off Fury, the YFQ‑44A collaborative combat aircraft now in ground tests for the U.S. Air Force. A “60 Minutes” camera crew captured engineers fastening the composite wing with ordinary screwdrivers, a deliberate reveal meant to emphasize modular construction and rapid assembly. (Business Insider, CBS News) The demonstration marked the first public look inside the start‑up’s bid to field an uncrewed fighter able to fly ahead of manned jets, scout, jam, and shoot on its own initiative.
From Blue Force to YFQ‑44A
Fury’s lineage began at Blue Force Technologies, acquired by Anduril in 2023. The deal folded Blue Force’s digital‑engineering tool chain and composite‑fab facilities into Anduril’s software‑centric model, giving the venture‑backed firm an in‑house airframe to pair with its Lattice autonomy stack. (Anduril Industries, Flight Global) Two years later the Air Force designated Anduril’s prototype YFQ‑44A, one of only two drones ever to carry the “F” mission prefix reserved for fighters. (DefenseScoop)
Hardware built for software cadence
Fury is a Group 5 jet‑powered air vehicle roughly the size of an F‑16 wing, cruising above Mach 0.8 with a combat radius near 1,000 nautical miles. Its nose bay, centerline tunnel, and wing‑root stations accept swappable modules—radar one sortie, IRST the next, or a weapons rack when rules of engagement permit. Additive‑manufactured ducts and quick‑change leading edges let Anduril iterate aerodynamics as fast as the autonomy team pushes new code, a key point of difference from traditional prime‑contractor timelines. (Anduril Industries, The War Zone)
The CCA knife‑fight
Under Increment 1 of the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program, Anduril’s YFQ‑44A is squaring off against General Atomics’ YFQ‑42A. Prototype flight trials start this summer, and the Air Force expects to pick a single design for production in fiscal 2026. (Defense News, Breaking Defense) The service wants at least 1,000 CCAs—attritable wingmen that cost a fraction of an F‑35 yet field sensors, jammers, and missiles powerful enough to complicate Chinese and Russian air‑defense calculus. Business models diverge sharply: General Atomics leans on decades of UAV production, while Anduril pitches venture‑style speed and vertically integrated composites to hit $8 million‑per‑copy targets.
Why Fury matters beyond the contract
The open‑architecture ethos baked into Fury’s avionics and Anduril’s Lattice OS aligns with Pentagon mandates for plug‑and‑play payloads and third‑party AI agents. If the Air Force certifies that approach, it hard‑codes API‑level interoperability into future CCAs, effectively prying the fighter market away from proprietary mission systems. For investors and strategists tracking the defense industrial base, that migration—software‑defined aircraft whose upgrades arrive over‑the‑air—could redirect billions from legacy sustainment into continuous DevSecOps cycles.
Risks and signals to watch
Fury still has to fly, prove it can survive electronic‑warfare threat environments, and persuade test pilots its autonomy is predictable enough for manned‑unmanned teaming. Watch for:
DSCA notifications that outline any live‑fire weapon certifications,
Air Force Scientific Advisory Board reports on CCA autonomy safety cases,
Appropriations language this autumn indicating whether Congress funds a two‑vendor fly‑off or forces an early down‑select.
A smooth first flight and a favorable data‑rights deal with the Air Force would put Anduril on track not just to win CCA Increment 1, but to reset expectations for how fast—and how cheaply—the United States can field combat‑credible aircraft in the AI age.
For The OPC Ledger audience, the takeaway is stark: whoever controls the autonomy layer will define the next generation of air dominance, and Fury is Anduril’s bid to seize that software high ground. (Business Insider)