The U.S. Air Force has named its two newest Collaborative Combat Aircraft: General Atomics’ FQ-42A will be known as Vengeance, while Anduril’s FQ-44A will be called Fury. Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink used the designations publicly for the first time during a keynote address at the Air & Space Forces Association’s 2026 Air, Space & Cyber Conference, where he also set out an ambitious target of placing at least 500 autonomous aircraft in service by 2032.

The CCA aircraft are expected to take on many of the missions performed by manned fighters today. Meink presented them as part of a force that he said will look substantially different by the early 2030s, alongside autonomous systems intended for special operations and a separate family of lower-cost strike aircraft.

“Because of the steps we are taking today, we will have a significantly different force by 2032,” Meink said at the conference. “By then, our special operators will have the ability to employ thousands of autonomous one-way attack systems, and we will have autonomous fighters like the Collaborative Combat Aircraft.”

Troy Meink, Secretary of the Air Force

Flight testing and a live-fire milestone

Meink highlighted the speed of the CCA effort, saying the aircraft moved from contract award to first flight in fewer than 18 months—an interval he described as “almost unheard of in aircraft development.” General Atomics’ FQ-42A first flew in August 2025, more than a year after its contract award. Anduril’s FQ-44A began flight testing in October 2025, and the company rolled its first aircraft off the assembly line in July.

The Air Force has also completed its first live-fire test involving Anduril’s FQ-44A. The test carried out an end-to-end, beyond-line-of-sight strike against a simulated target using an inert AIM-120, according to the service’s account of the milestone.

The program’s fiscal 2027 request totals $2.37 billion. That includes $996.5 million in procurement funding, $150 million in advanced procurement for the following fiscal year, and $1.37 billion for continued research and development. Meink said reaching the Air Force’s goals will require Congress and industry partners to provide additional resources for prototype development and production at scale.

A separate push for massed modular aircraft

CCAs are only one category of autonomous aircraft the Air Force is pursuing, Meink said. He pointed to the role of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance strike platforms during Operation Epic Fury, as well as the service’s use of the MQ-9 Reaper and the Unmanned Long-endurance Tactical Reconnaissance Aircraft, known as ULTRA.

The service is also developing Massed Modular Aircraft, or MMAs, as a family of low-cost, multi-role strike platforms intended to succeed the MQ-9 Reaper. Meink said the Air Force intends to field 100 MMAs in 2029, at a cost below that of CCAs and at a fraction of the cost of manned aircraft now being built. He said the service expects to have tens of thousands in inventory by 2030, adding that the aircraft are already being used today.

“MMAs will provide affordable, attributable, long-range strike, and we will be able to field them at scale,” Meink said.

Troy Meink, Secretary of the Air Force