Shutdown will delay Air Force drone wingman’s first flight, Anduril executive says

WASHINGTON — An ongoing government shutdown will “certainly” set back a first flight of Anduril’s offering for the Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft drone wingman program, according to the company’s founder. 

Speaking with a group of reporters ahead of the annual AUSA conference in Washington, Palmer Luckey was asked when the company’s Fury drone, dubbed the YFQ-44A by the Air Force, would have its first test flight. General Atomics’ YFQ–42A, which is also competing for a production contract under the CCA program, first flew in August.

Luckey started his answer by expressing support for both the aircraft itself and the Air Force’s process, saying “My engineers tell me that if we push the button … [the drone] will take off, it’ll fly around, and it’ll come back home. The Air Force is going through a process of evaluation that is very, very reasonable, I think.”

Then he stated, “Obviously, now the problem is we’re into the shutdown.” Asked to clarify if that meant delay of the first flight, Luckey said “Certainly … a lot of stuff stops moving,” he continued, lamenting “that’s something that is kind of out of my control. I can’t fund the government.”

Anduril handed over the drone to the Air Force in the summer, according to Luckey, who said ground testing like fueling, taxiing and weapons integration is underway. 

Diem Salmon, Anduril’s vice president for air dominance and strike, previously attributed the missed summer target for first flight on continued software development for a “semi-autonomous” flight similar to Luckey’s description of a push of a button, though she said the company is still “well ahead of the program schedule” for the milestone. (For the YFQ-42A, General Atomics could have conducted a semi-autonomous first flight, but the company’s philosophy is that every inaugural sortie is piloted by a human being, Dave Alexander, the president of the company’s aeronautics unit, previously told Breaking Defense.)

Anduril and General Atomics have been facing off under the first round of the CCA program after the Air Force winnowed down a larger pool of vendors last year. Service officials maintain they can carry multiple contractors, including new entrants, into production for the first round, while awards for conceptual contracts for the CCA program’s second round are expected within months. 

Startup Shield AI was picked by the Air Force to provide autonomy for Anduril’s drone bid, and defense giant RTX was selected for a similar role on General Atomics’ platform, Breaking Defense previously reported.

The Air Force is currently working through how it wants to employ the drones, though the service’s nominee to be its next chief of staff, Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach, has raised the concept of operating the unmanned wingmen in independent squadrons separate from the aircraft they’ll be flying with. 

“We’re thinking that they’re not going to be embedded in current fighter squadrons, but rather they’re going to be their own squadrons, and they’ll be dispersed,” Wilsbach said during his confirmation hearing for the chief of staff role Oct. 9, adding that “there’ll be a strategic basing process” for placing the drones. 

“I don’t see why the Air Force Reserve, the Air National Guard and the active duty would not be considered” to operate the drones, he added. 

Ashley Roque contributed to this report.