A month ago, the U.S. Air Force cleared its first two "fighter drones" for production. This week, the factories actually started building them — and one of them dropped a letter from its name.

On 27 July 2026, the first Ohio-built Fury rolled off Anduril's brand-new Arsenal-1 production line. A day later, General Atomics announced that its own contender, the FQ-42A Dark Merlin, is now in "full-scale manufacturing." The prototypes were designated YFQ-42A and YFQ-44A — the Y marking them as experimental. Now they are the FQ-42A and FQ-44A. America has robot fighters coming off assembly lines.

These are Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA): semi-autonomous "loyal wingmen" designed to fly alongside crewed F-35s, F-22s and the future F-47 — at a target price of under $30 million each, roughly a third of what an F-35A costs.

From prototype to production line

The pace is the story. Anduril announced Arsenal-1 in Pickaway County in January 2025; 557 days later, the first Fury was complete — production having actually begun in March, three months ahead of schedule. In an industry where a new aircraft factory usually takes three to five years to reach first delivery, Anduril and Ohio did it in under two.

In June, the Air Force selected both the Fury and General Atomics' Dark Merlin for initial production, with a combined 150-plus aircraft to be delivered by 2030. The July milestones turn that decision into metal.

What these things actually are

A CCA is not a Reaper. It is a jet-powered, fighter-shaped drone meant to fly into contested airspace carrying sensors, weapons or electronic-warfare gear, taking cues from a nearby crewed fighter. The YFQ-44A has already fired an AIM-120 air-to-air missile in testing, and both types have flown out of Creech Air Force Base. Crucially, the aircraft do not choose their own targets — a human operator retains command and the authority to employ weapons.

Perché è importante

The whole point of the CCA program is "affordable mass" — the idea that a large number of cheap, semi-autonomous jets is more survivable and more useful in a big war than a small fleet of exquisite, irreplaceable ones. That only works if you can actually build them fast and cheap. A purpose-built megafactory rolling out its first aircraft ahead of schedule is exactly the proof of concept the Air Force wanted to see.

Two years ago, robot wingmen were briefing slides. This week, one rolled out of an Ohio factory under its own production designation. The age of the mass-produced fighter drone has, quietly, begun.

Sources: JobsOhio; The Aviationist; TWZ; Military Times; Breaking Defense.