🇺🇸 Why is the United States speeding up the construction of so many "unmanned fighters"?

🇺🇸 Why is the United States speeding up the construction of so many "unmanned fighters"?

The key answer is price - the Collaborative Combat Aircraft Program, or CCA, aims to control the cost of each aircraft at around $25-30 million, or about a third of the F-35A, which has a dedicated supply price of $80-90 million. The actual prices of the FQ-42A and FQ-44A have not been revealed.

The CCA is not a disposable drone, but is designed to have a greater cost and level of risk acceptable to the military than an aircraft has a pilot. If lost in combat, it has no pilot life inside, so it is suitable for missions in airspace with dense protection systems, such as detecting targets, interfering with signals, carrying weapons, or acting as a reinforcer for fighters. ✈️

General Atomics' FQ-42A Dark Merlin first flew in August 2025. Anduril's FQ-44A Fury segment first flew in October the same year. Before both companies were awarded production contracts on June 17, 2026 marked a very rapid transition from prototype to production for the U.S. military aircraft program.

The Air Force announced a goal to procure more than 150 combat-ready CCA's by the end of the decade, and placed an initial long-range target of around 1,000, while numbers of up to 2,500 - including 2,350 behind the first batch - are only an estimate for increasing the number of CCA's per pilot, not an approved Increment 2 order.

Sources: U.S. Air Force · Reuters · Air & Space Forces Magazine

# deepkub # CCA # F35 # Battle drones # Military technology