The U.S. Air Force’s Experimental Operations Unit (EOU) completed its first hands-on exercise with Anduril Industries’ YFQ-44A Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) at Edwards Air Force Base, California, the Air Force announced April 16, marking the first time warfighters took independent operational control of a CCA prototype.

Writing the playbook for tomorrow’s fight.

Operators are putting Collaborative Combat Aircraft to work faster—developing tactics through early experimentation & shaping how they’ll be used in the future fight.

More: https://t.co/oPd8aYZN7j#CCA #NextGen #AirForce #Innovation pic.twitter.com/OJUmX0NPsw

— U.S. Air Force (@usairforce) April 16, 2026

Working under Air Combat Command alongside Air Force Materiel Command’s 412th Test Wing, EOU Airmen owned the aircraft’s complete sortie cycle: weapons loading and unloading, preflight checks, autonomous taxi and takeoff initiation, mission tasking, and post-flight data management.

Anduril personnel, who had previously led those tasks, transferred full operational authority to the Air Force crew.

Anduril’s Menace-T command, control, communications, and compute solution ran from two Pelican cases and a laptop, replacing fixed infrastructure and validating the minimal footprint the Air Force’s Agile Combat Employment (ACE) concept demands.

“This experimental operations event was executed by EOU members from start to finish,” said Lt. Col. Matthew Jensen, EOU commander. “Every sortie generated and flown was done with a warfighter, not an engineer or test pilot, kicking the tires and controlling the prototypes. We are learning by doing, at a speed and risk tolerance accepted by the USAF’s most senior leaders, to ensure CCA is ready to operate and win in the most demanding combat environments.”

We have started production of YFQ-44A Collaborative Combat Aircraft at Arsenal-1.

— Anduril Industries (@anduriltech) March 23, 2026

The exercise came roughly three weeks after Anduril announced the YFQ-44A entered serial production at its Arsenal-1 factory in Columbus, Ohio, on March 24.

Pentagon budget documents show the Air Force has requested $996.5 million in fiscal year 2027 CCA procurement funding and $150 million in advance procurement for fiscal 2028, with an Increment 1 production decision expected by year-end.

“The collaboration we saw in this exercise is the cornerstone of our acquisition transformation,” said Col. Timothy Helfrich, portfolio acquisition executive for fighters and advanced aircraft. “By embedding the operators from the EOU with our acquisition professionals, we create a tight feedback loop that lets us trade operational risk with acquisition risk in real-time. This is a demonstration of how we are adopting a more agile process. An 85% solution in the hands of a warfighter today is better than a 100% solution that never arrives.”

The YFQ-44A made its first semi-autonomous flight on October 31, 2025, less than two years after prototype contract award.

YFQ-44A took flight today. Anduril has launched a new age of airpower with the push of a button.

From clean-sheet design to one-click takeoff in 556 days. pic.twitter.com/hUxIZCP8Zz

— Anduril Industries (@anduriltech) October 31, 2025

General Atomics’ competing prototype, the YFQ-42A, crashed during testing earlier this month.