Anduril, General Atomics get Air Force contracts to build first drone wingmen - Defense One
Skip to Content
Notice at Collection
Your Privacy Choices
Exercise Your Privacy Rights
Pentagon’s use of JAGs in civilian roles would be probed under NDAA provision
Push for new Cyber Force service branch narrowly fails in the Senate
The Army wants to build a better data center. Can they do it?
Senators want a new robot warfare-focused combatant command
Mystery GPS outages traced to Russian satellite
sponsor content
Establishing an Agentic AI Cybersecurity & Defense Organization in Department Of War
Pentagon’s use of JAGs in civilian roles would be probed under NDAA provision
Push for new Cyber Force service branch narrowly fails in the Senate
The Army wants to build a better data center. Can they do it?
Senators want a new robot warfare-focused combatant command
Mystery GPS outages traced to Russian satellite
sponsor content
Establishing an Agentic AI Cybersecurity & Defense Organization in Department Of War
Trending
Tech Summit
Pentagon
AI & Autonomy
Ukraine
Science
Congress
Drones
Pentagon’s use of JAGs in civilian roles would be probed under NDAA provision
Push for new Cyber Force service branch narrowly fails in the Senate
The Army wants to build a better data center. Can they do it?
Senators want a new robot warfare-focused combatant command
Mystery GPS outages traced to Russian satellite
[SPONSORED] Establishing an Agentic AI Cybersecurity & Defense Organization in Department Of War
Get all our news and commentary in your inbox at 6 a.m. ET.
emailRegister for Newsletter
Stay Connected
Insights & Reports
Visibility equals value: How observability is helping states drive resilience<br>Presented By Splunk
Download Now
Turning data into decisions: A new model for federal cybersecurity<br>Presented By Splunk
Download Now
Defense Systems
Anduril, General Atomics get Air Force contracts to build first drone wingmen
Six other companies will compete to develop its autonomy software.
Thomas Novelly
June 17, 2026 10:36 PM ET
Air Force
AI & Autonomy
Aircraft
Industry
By Thomas Novelly
Senior Reporter
June 17, 2026 10:36 PM ET
Air Force
AI & Autonomy
Aircraft
Industry
Air Force leaders have given initial production contracts to Anduril and General Atomics, which will both build collaborative combat aircraft based on their respective prototypes. Northrop Grumman’s self-financed offering was not selected.<br>Several companies also received money to develop software that will compete to pilot the service’s future fleet of drone wingmen.<br>The Increment 1 CCA contracts are for three lots of the drone wingmen, Air Force Col. Timothy Helfrich, the portfolio acquisition executive for fighters and advanced aircraft, told reporters during a briefing on Wednesday. He declined to say how many CCAs would be in each lot, nor how much each would cost.<br>Helfrich told Defense One in March that the Air Force was beating its goal of buying each CCA for about one-third of the cost of an F-35 fighter jet. The Defense Department is seeking nearly $1 billion to buy CCAs, 2027 budget documents show.<br>The announcement made winners of both Anduril and General Atomics in their two-year battle to furnish the Air Force’s first CCAs.<br>But more competitions are underway. Three firms are vying to build the drone wingman’s autonomous software platform. As well, nine vendors are competing for Increment 2 of the CCA program.<br>“By moving fast from competitive selection into full-scale manufacturing, we position ourselves<br>to field highly credible and combat-ready semi-autonomous systems to stay ahead of the pacing challenge,” Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said in a press release. “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.”<br>Both Anduril and General Atomics had setbacks while prototyping their CCA variants.<br>In April, General Atomics’ YFQ-42A Dark Merlin crashed at the company’s California airport after an autopilot program error. The incident halted flight testing for a little more than a month.<br>“This is an exciting day for our company and the nation,” General Atomics President David Alexander said in a Wednesday press release. “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.”<br>Anduril’s push for semi-autonomous software led to a months-long delay in notching its first flight. The company got its YFQ-44A Fury prototype off the ground in late October.<br>“We have been refining, testing, and iterating on our production system, in parallel with aircraft development, for the past two years. We have already implemented our full rate production processes and tooling on prototype aircraft, identifying and addressing issues during...