Atomics

The U.S. Air Force has awarded contracts for the production of General Atomics FQ-42A Dark Merlin and Anduril FQ-44A Fury drones. This sets the service up to operate a split initial fleet of Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), something TWZ has highlighted as being a distinct possibility from the start.

The Air Force down-selected the designs from General Atomics and Anduril to move ahead as part of the first incremental development cycle of its CCA program, or Increment 1, back in 2024. What were originally designated the YFQ-42A and YFQ-44A first flew in August and October 2025, respectively, and have been undergoing further testing since then. Dark Merlin testing was paused earlier this year after one of the drones crashed, but has resumed.

“By moving fast from competitive selection into full-scale manufacturing, we position ourselves to field highly credible and combat-ready semi-autonomous systems to stay ahead of the pacing challenge,” Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink said in a statement today. “These contracts reaffirm our confidence in the strategic path forward for the program to procure over 150 combat capable CCA by the end of the decade.”

The Air Force says these contracts were awarded four months ahead of schedule, reflecting “that the FQ-42 and FQ-44 meet rigorous mission requirements and are ready for full-scale manufacturing.” At the time of writing, the service does not appear to have provided an update on the expected delivery timeline of the first production CCAs, but it has said in the past that it is hoping to have the first examples in operational service toward the end of the decade. Air Force has asked for nearly $1 billion in its 2027 Fiscal Year budget request to begin procurement of these drones.

“Under the contract, Anduril will deliver an initial set of production FQ-44 semi-autonomous fighter aircraft to support continued testing, validation, and, ultimately, operational fielding,” Mark Shushnar, Anduril’s Vice President for Autonomous Airpower, also wrote in a blog post today. “The contract also establishes a structure for the Air Force to buy additional lots of production FQ-44 aircraft across the next several years, providing a clear path for the Air Force to rapidly and affordably expand fighter capacity.”

“This is an exciting day for our company and the nation,” David Alexander, President of General Atomics’ Aeronautical Systems, Inc. division (GA-ASI), said in his own statement. “Moving to production on FQ-42A is the result of an extraordinary partnership and many years of investments between General Atomics and the U.S. Air Force. We’ve been preparing for this order, and manufacturing is already well underway.”

A split-buy of Dark Merlin and Fury drones will help drive down risk. The designs are also very different, which opens the door to more operational possibilities for the Air Force right from the start. General Atomics and Anduril can also then focus on refining the respective strengths of their uncrewed aircraft. As noted, TWZ has pointed out on several occasions that a mixture of uncrewed platforms with different attributes would be needed to truly do justice to the CCA concept.

Furthermore, the Air Force making this decision still deep in the developmental phase also underscores how critical the service sees CCAs, and its desire to push ahead with getting at least an early iteration of the capability into service.

“Collaborative Combat Aircraft change how we project power and generate mass in highly contested environments,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ken Wilsbach said in a statement today. “Delivering this capability to our warfighters faster ensures our forces maintain the tactical edge required to deter and, if necessary, defeat any adversary.”

The Air Force has also further split the CCA effort into hardware and software segments, with airframe development falling into the former category.

“These distinct efforts validate acquisition transformation principles to secure a critical operational advantage: decoupling hardware from software,” according to an Air Force press release today. “By treating mission autonomy as ‘software sold separately,’ the Air Force ensures that the warfighter receives state-of-the-art physical platforms alongside agile, easily updatable software, effectively breaking traditional procurement molds.”

Anduril and General Atomics, as well as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, RTX Collins Aerospace, and Shield AI form the current vendor pool for the software side of the CCA program. The Air Force announced today that it had awarded additional mission autonomy contracts to Anduril, Collins, and Shield AI. Anduril is notably the only company currently with CCA contracts on the hardware and software sides.

Collaborative Mission Autonomy

“This targeted award, based on the vendors’ ability to meet aggressive schedule and affordability requirements, will fund the first of two six-month competitive phases designed to speed the fielding of operational software to the warfighter,” according to an Air Force release. “While the baseline contract establishes a continuous competitive arena, the competitive awards are designed to deliver capability faster. Following the initial six-month period, the Air Force will evaluate the vendors’ progress and execute a second competitive award period. This performance-based competition will culminate in the selection of a primary mission autonomy provider for CCA Increment 1, with award planned for selection by summer 2027.”

“Furthermore, this software contract leverages a first-of-its-kind award fee exposure strategy, which enables operator feedback and combat performance to determine what the Air Force pays for mission autonomy. The Air Force will only pay the entire licensing fee if a vendor provides a combat capability aligned with warfighter needs and feedback,” the release adds. “The licensing approach also allows the Air Force to award software licenses to any of the six vendors within the pool at any point over the next six years. This approach ensures the Air Force can procure the best-performing and most affordable solutions as technology evolves.”

More government ownership of key intellectual property, and software in particular, has become a central guiding principle for the U.S. military contracting, in general, in recent years. When it comes to autonomy software packages, there is also now a core government-owned Autonomy Government Reference Architecture (A-GRA) that goes beyond the Air Force’s CCA program.

“Today, Lattice for Mission Autonomy is fully A-GRA compliant, ensuring that it can be integrated not only with all Increment 1 CCA, but with the full spectrum of current and future A-GRA compliant aircraft,” Anduril’s Shushnar highlighted in his blog post. “Through the A-GRA, the CCA program has established the foundation that will drive the development of a larger ecosystem of autonomous aircraft.”

Lattice for Mission Autonomy: An Unfair Advantage for Unrivaled Deterrence

Shield AI’s Hivemind software is also already flying on a number of different drones.  Just last month, the Pentagon announced that it would be using this autonomy package to introduce swarming capabilities to its Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System (LUCAS) kamikaze drones.  

Shield AI flies Hivemind AI Pilot on 6th Aircraft

“Mission autonomy is the cornerstone of the CCA concept, and leveraging a competitive, multi-vendor environment ensures we capture the latest technology,” Secretary Meink also said today in another statement. “This approach guarantees our Airmen are equipped with state-of-the-art capabilities today but keeps the door open for the breakthroughs necessary to maintain air superiority.”

In general, greater government control over intellectual property rights also helps avoid the potential to be locked into a single vendor. Establishing vendor pools to compete for follow-on contracts also creates opportunities to lower costs and to diversify supply chains, especially when it comes to hardware. That diversification, in turn, can be beneficial when it comes time to scale up production of both key subcomponents and complete systems.

As far as we know, the Air Force is still planning for at least one more incremental CCA development cycle, or Increment 2, firm requirements for which have yet to be publicly released. This could lead to further diversification of the service’s future CCA fleets. The Air Force has notably already given the YFQ-48A designation to Northrop Grumman’s Talon Blue drone design, which first broke cover in December 2025. Boeing’s MQ-28 Ghost Bat, originally developed for Australia, now has a greater presence in the United States.

The U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Navy are also pursuing their own CCA fleets in very close coordination with the Air Force. The Air Force is very much in the lead in fielding drones in this category, which could factor into future Marine and Navy decisions. The Marines are currently planning for their first tranche of MQ-58 Valkyrie CCA drones from Kratos to arrive in 2029. The Navy’s program is still very much in its infancy.

The Air Force’s CCA program has now taken another major step forward toward an initial fleet of drones that will include both General Atomics Dark Merlin and Anduril’s Fury.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

General Atomics is calling attention to a new mission for its Mojave short takeoff and landing (STOL) drone: hunting uncrewed aerial threats with laser-guided Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System II (APKWS II) rockets. The company put a heavy focus on this planned capability in a larger vision for Mojave that rolled out today.

Mojave is also envisioned as launching its own kamikaze drones, escorting friendly helicopters, spotting targets for artillery, and even transporting small cargoes. With its short and rough field capabilities, the drone could also push these capabilities far forward, including to island outposts during a future conflict in the Pacific. This was all showcased in a new computer-generated video, seen below. General Atomics’ Aeronautical Systems, Inc. division (GA-ASI) showed the video first today at the Army Aviation Association of America’s (AAAA) 2026 Warfighting Summit, at which TWZ is in attendance.

Mojave STOL: Real. Rugged. Ready Today.

General Atomics is also now officially referring to the drone at the center of the video as Mojave STOL. The company has previously used the name Gray Eagle STOL to differentiate planned production models from the already flying Mojave demonstrator, which first broke cover in 2021. Mojave is derived from the MQ-1C Gray Eagle, which itself leveraged the preceding MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper designs.

“General Atomics is all-in on providing the best STOL solution for the Army and U.S. allies worldwide,” General Atomics spokesperson C. Mark Brinkley told TWZ. “Everything you see is a capability we can do right now, things already demonstrated on a real, flying aircraft.”

The new video, set “somewhere in the Western Pacific,” focuses first on the rocket-armed drone hunter mission. A Mojave STOL is depicted using an EagleEye multi-mode radar, as well as its infrared sensor in the turret under its nose, to spot and track a pair of kamikaze drones clearly modeled on the Iranian-designed Shahed-136 pattern. EagleEye is another General Atomics product, which was first unveiled in 2022 and has a demonstrated air-to-air target acquisition capability. It also has surface search, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging, and ground moving target indicator (GMTI) modes.

The drone is then shown alerting a forward U.S. outpost to these approaching uncrewed aerial threats via satellite. Using a ruggedized laptop, an operator on the ground then orders the kamikaze drones to be destroyed. A Mojave carrying two 19-shot 70mm rocket pods, one under each wing, then swoops in and shoots them down. Afterward, it is also depicted being rearmed at a very rough-looking, unimproved jungle airstrip.

“We’ve shown APKWS [BAE Systems’ 70mm Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System II laser-guided rocket] mounted to Mojave in a static display at some of the recent U.S. Army shows where Mojave STOL was present,” General Atomics’ Brinkley told us. “Integrating new weapons is a multi-part process. Fit tests, weight considerations, captive carry for airworthiness, software, [and] actual live-fire.”

“For Mojave STOL and other GA-ASI aircraft, we’re inside that process now with APKWS,” he added. “It’s flying and firing soon, [in] weeks not months.”

“APKWS has already been demonstrated on other aircraft against airborne targets, so we know the weapon itself works for this mission,” he also noted. “GA-ASI has successfully destroyed other airborne targets using various weapons, including AIM-9X and Hellfire, so we know we can track, target, and hit flying objects of various sizes and speeds.”

APKWS II has had a meteoric rise in popularity in the air-to-air role since the U.S. Air Force F-16 fighters first began using the rockets this way in combat against Houthi drones in 2024, which TWZ was first to report. APKWS II was originally designed as an air-to-surface weapon and then also adapted to the surface-to-air role against drones. The total number of U.S. military and foreign aircraft cleared to use a variant of the rocket specifically optimized for air-to-air use continues to grow. Other companies that make similar laser-guided rockets are also now adapting them for employment in the anti-air role.

As an anti-air weapon against slower-flying and less dynamic targets, APKWS II offers immense benefits over traditional air-to-air missiles when it comes to cost-per-engagement and magazine depth, as you can read more about here. Just carrying two 19-shot pods, Mojave has an impressive 38 engagement opportunities. The drone has six underwing pylons and could carry additional pods, as well as other stores.

After the drone-hunting vignette, General Atomics’ new Mojave video moves on to show one of the drones leading a group of AH-64 Apache and UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters into apparent hostile territory. The drone fires an AeroVironment Switchblade 600 loitering munition to destroy an enemy mobile surface-to-air missile system to help clear the way. GA-ASI, in cooperation with AeroVironment, has previously demonstrated the ability of Switchblade 600 to be air-launched from the MQ-9 Reaper.

The video also shows Mojave being used to find and fix enemy forces, which are then engaged by friendly 155mm howitzers, as well as to carry cargo in underwing pods to forward locations. GA-ASI has previously showcased the potential value of Mojave in the latter role as part of a larger construct to provide logistics support during future expeditionary and distributed operations, even in actively contested environments.

The new video caps off with a Mojave firing on unseen targets with a pair of underwing Minigun pods. This is another capability General Atomics has previously demonstrated in real life. The drone can also carry other stores, including AGM-114 Hellfires and AGM-179 Joint Air-to-Ground Missiles (JAGM), on the pylons under its wings.

General Atomics is pitching the overall vision presented here for Mojave heavily to the U.S. Army, though it has also been engaged with other potential customers. Testing in cooperation with authorities in the United Kingdom and South Korea has demonstrated how the drone’s short-field capabilities could also translate to naval operations from aircraft carriers and big deck amphibious assault ships. Last year, GA-ASI announced a partnership with Hanwha Aerospace in South Korea to produce what was still then being called Gray Eagle STOL in that country.

Mojave Aircraft Carrier Takeoff and Landing

“Mojave STOL provides the versatility that the U.S. Army and others need for the future, with the endurance and persistence they’ve come to rely on, underpinned by experience gleaned from almost 10 million total flight hours,” General Atomics’ Brinkley told us. “That’s why Hanwha jumped in as our partner on this, bringing international investment to further buy down risk.”

“The U.S. Army wants to be successful right out of the gate. No stumbling, no fumbling,” he added. “They’re already integrating tactical drones into the force and experimenting with how that will change the nature of American warfare. They’re bringing a new tiltrotor online. It’s a period of massive change for Army aviation.”

The tiltrotor in question is the MV-75A, now officially nicknamed the Cheyenne II, which Bell derived from its V-280 Valor design. You can read more about the Army’s current plans for this aircraft here.

The Army is now in the early stages of formulating plans to acquire uncrewed companions for the MV-75A and its existing fleets of crewed helicopters. However, the focus so far has been on vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) capable designs rather than a fixed-wing type like Mojave, as TWZ has explored previously. In general, greater independence from traditional runways has been a major area of focus across the U.S. military in recent years when it comes to planning for future aviation operations, especially in the context of a high-end fight in the Pacific against China.

“Our engineers are obsessed with developing the next-generation of uncrewed aircraft. More than a decade ago, they dug deep into VTOL and runway independence,” General Atomics’ Brinkley explained. “What they discovered was payload and endurance tradeoffs with VTOL create a lot of challenges when applied to real combat operations. It’s a tough hand to play.”

“Mojave STOL is flying right now. We have five million square feet of existing manufacturing, ready to go,” he added. “We can help the Army integrate a real, rugged, ready today Mojave STOL into the force with far less risk to success.”

Questions have also been raised in the past about the survivability and general utility of drones like Mojave, as well as predecessors like the MQ-1C and MQ-9, in future high-end operations. The latest conflict with Iran has underscored the vulnerability of the Reaper, in particular. Air-launched drones and stand-off munitions, as well as new self-protection capabilities, can help keep these drones further away from enemy defenses. TWZ has also previously highlighted how a drone like Mojave could be used to provide more localized force protection, including against uncrewed aerial threats, at forward outposts and rear areas in the context of a larger conflict.

It’s also worth noting here that while Mojave would not be as quick to respond to incoming drone threats as a tactical jet, it would be able to loiter in a particular area for a longer period of time. It could also provide strike and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) support while on station. Being able to fly from unimproved forward airstrips would also allow it to operate organically with the forces it is assigned to support.

When it comes to the Army, it remains to be seen how that service’s visions for its future drone fleets and crewed-uncrewed teaming evolve. As mentioned, the Mojave STOL’s capabilities, including its ability to act as a rocket-armed drone hunter, could be attractive to other potential operators, who might fly the drones from bases on land or ships at sea.

In the meantime, General Atomics continues to expand on the Mojave concept, which now includes the planned integration of APKWS II laser-guided rockets.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com