Anduril’s maiden flight of its YFQ-44A signals a fierce sprint to field AI-enabled wingmen, as the US Air Force races to plug a historic fighter shortfall it can’t easily build its way out of.
This month, multiple media outlets reported that Anduril’s YFQ-44A prototype drone, a contender in the US Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program, has completed its maiden flight at a California test site, officials said, marking the second CCA vehicle to enter flight trials after General Atomics’ YFQ-42A flew in August.
The semiautonomous aircraft, derived from technology acquired from Blue Force Technologies in 2023, is designed to fly alongside crewed fighters such as the F-22 and F-35, extending their reach and striking power while supporting missions ranging from strike and reconnaissance to electronic warfare.
US Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said the milestone provides critical performance data to shape requirements, reduce risk and accelerate delivery of AI-enabled wingmen capable of operating at scale.
Anduril executives highlighted the drone’s autonomy, stressing it was not built for remote piloting but to execute mission plans, manage flight controls and land with minimal human oversight. The company plans to begin live weapons testing next year and prototype-scale production in 2026 at its new Arsenal-1 facility in Ohio.
The US Air Force aims to field at least 1,000 CCAs by decade’s end, moving rapidly to develop teaming tactics and integration concepts at Edwards and Nellis Air Force Bases as part of its next-generation air dominance push.
The CCA program comes at a time when the US may be facing a massive fighter shortage, with ramping up production of manned fighters an increasingly unfeasible option to close the gap. To illustrate, an F-35 costs US$81 million in 2025, while each CCA is estimated to cost $25-30 million.
In October 2025, Breaking Defense reported on a US Air Force plan stating that the service needs a total of 1,558 combat-coded fighters, nearly 300 more than its current estimated inventory of 1,271 in fiscal year 2026. However, the plan states that due to competing modernization priorities, the US Air Force may not be able to afford the requisite production.
Furthermore, General David Deptula, dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, mentions in a Defense One article last month that the US Air Force has been on a downsizing “death spiral”, with the fighter goals stated in the service’s report 20-30% short of what’s needed to execute the US national security strategy.
Highlighting the US Air Force fighter shortage, General Mark Kelly mentioned in a September 2022 Defense News report that the US Air Force’s 48 fighter squadrons and nine attack squadrons are tasked to do the work of 60.
Kelly points out that while the combined number of 57 squadrons is not far off from the ideal, older aircraft such as the A-10 and earlier-model F-15s and F-16s may not be survivable against adversaries with advanced air defenses and require increasingly costly and challenging maintenance.
He contrasts the current US Air Force fighter strength of 48 fighter squadrons versus its late Cold War/Gulf War-era strength of 134 squadrons – pointing out that the US must acquire 72 fighters a year to fill that gap – a financially questionable endeavor.
However, Defense News points out that the US Air Force plan doesn’t account for CCAs, with a US Air Force official stating that a fleet of 1,000 units may alleviate the manned fighter shortage – but it isn’t known how many manned fighters CCAs can stand in for.
Stressing the need for CCAs, Colonel Mark Gunzinger and other writers mention in a February 2024 report for the Mitchell Institute of Aerospace Studies that the US Air Force’s fighter fleet is too small, aging and at significant risk against China’s modernized anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) complex – with fighter shortfalls projected to exceed requirements by at least half in a Taiwan scenario.
It argues CCAs are essential to offset limited F-22 and F-35 capacity by adding affordable, attritable mass, extending sensor and weapon reach and absorbing early-campaign attrition.
According to the report, wargame findings stress CCAs as lead forces to disrupt and saturate Chinese defenses, preserve crewed platforms and allow legacy aircraft to contribute from standoff ranges—multiplying combat power and compensating for insufficient manned fighter inventories.
Furthermore, Major Nicholas Stockdale states in an April 2025 article for the Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs that in a Taiwan conflict, the US Air Force plans to field CCAs as force-multiplying escorts—up to five per fighter or bomber—with a notional fleet of 1,000.
He writes that these unmanned systems amplify strike and interdiction capability in an aerial-denial campaign while reducing risk to crewed aircraft. Stockdale ties their value to Desert Storm-style sustained air pressure, arguing CCAs could help saturate Chinese defenses and complement manned platforms in breaking the invasion forces’ momentum.
However, CCAs may not be a panacea solution to the US Air Force’s fighter shortages. In an April 2025 report for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), Travis Sharp writes that there is “no dominant strategy” for CCA employment, meaning different design and basing choices produce significant trade-offs.
Sharp notes that CCAs optimized for rapid strikes or persistent sensing perform worse outside those profiles, and high-tempo CCA use near Taiwan drives major fuel and sustainment demands.
Sharp says heavy attrition could exhaust a 500-drone fleet within weeks unless the US procures far more CCAs or invests in more survivable variants, underscoring that CCA force-planning requires difficult quantity–cost tradeoffs.
Similarly, Brian Moscioni argues in a June 2025 Harvard Belfer Center report that CCA autonomy remains immature and deliberately capped at conditional/high automation, with humans retaining higher-order decisions.
Moscioni notes that while demonstrations show progress, they require human oversight and expose hurdles in terms of trust, safety, latency, interference and AI hallucinations. He says that policy guidance consequently urges sustained investment in crewed combat aviation, with CCAs augmenting sensing, electronic warfare and weapons carriage rather than replacing pilots.
Whether CCAs become force-multiplying wingmen or expensive niche assets, the US Air Force’s window to fix its fighter gap is closing fast — and autonomous jets alone won’t keep it open.
