GE Aerospace wins deal to design engine for U.S. Air Force autonomous aircraft

GE Aerospace has secured a U.S. Air Force contract to advance the preliminary design of its GE426 engine, a propulsion system built specifically for the medium-thrust class of autonomous combat aircraft the Air Force is developing to operate alongside crewed fighters.

The award marks the next development milestone for a program that passed its concept design review in August 2025, and positions GE’s Cincinnati-based aerospace division as a serious contender in what is shaping up to be a highly competitive race to power the Air Force’s future fleet of drone wingmen.

The Air Force’s Autonomous Collaborative Platform program, run by the Air Force Research Laboratory, is the technical foundation beneath the service’s broader push toward fielding large numbers of AI-piloted drones that can fly alongside crewed aircraft, absorb risk, carry weapons, conduct surveillance, and perform electronic warfare missions in airspace too dangerous to commit pilots to. The vision is not a single type of aircraft but a family of platforms spanning multiple thrust classes and mission profiles, which is why the Air Force has been deliberately cultivating multiple engine suppliers rather than selecting a single winner.

In February 2026, the Air Force awarded engine development contracts to four industry teams — Beehive Industries, Honeywell, Pratt and Whitney, and a joint team of GE Aerospace and Kratos — to mature engine designs supporting CCA Increment 2 and other ACP types, with an Air Force spokesperson describing the approach as ensuring “a variety of options to power the diverse and evolving fleet of ACP and CCA Increments,” according to Breaking Defense.

The GE426 sits in a different thrust class from the GEK1500 that GE and Kratos are developing jointly, giving GE a presence at multiple points on the power spectrum the Air Force is trying to fill. The GEK1500, which produces approximately 1,500 pounds of thrust and is derived from lessons learned on the mature GEK800 cruise missile engine, targets the smaller end of the CCA market. The GE426 is aimed at the medium-thrust class, which implies a larger, longer-range, more capable platform than the attritable small-drone category. GE Aerospace did not disclose the contract value or the specific thrust rating of the GE426 in its announcement.

Understanding why engine development matters so much to this program requires a brief tour of how the Air Force got here. The CCA Increment 1 program, which selected General Atomics’ YFQ-42A and Anduril’s YFQ-44A as competing prototypes after both made their first flights in 2025, used commercially available engines rather than purpose-built propulsion to keep the development timeline moving. Both prototype aircraft completed first flights in 2025, with General Atomics flying in August and Anduril following in October, and both are now undergoing autonomy integration testing with Collins Aerospace and Shield AI providing the mission software, according to DefenseScoop’s reporting. That Increment 1 approach got drones flying quickly, but it left an acknowledged gap: the engines available off the shelf were not optimized for the cost, durability, producibility, and performance profile the Air Force needs for a platform it intends to field in the thousands. The ACP engine development contracts, including the GE426 award, are the Air Force’s investment in closing that gap for future increments.

The scale of the Air Force’s ambition on drone numbers is one of the most important pieces of context for understanding why propulsion development is so critical. The Air Force has stated plans to purchase at least 1,000 Increment 1 CCA drones and begin fielding before the end of the decade, with total spending on CCA programs estimated at approximately $9 billion through fiscal year 2029, according to budget documents reported by Aerospace America. An engine that costs significantly more per unit than the platform’s price target, or that requires specialized manufacturing processes that cannot scale to hundreds or thousands of units per year, breaks the entire affordability model. GE Aerospace has been explicit about treating producibility as a core design constraint rather than an afterthought, which is reflected in the press release’s language about ensuring “alignment with Air Force requirements for the medium-thrust-class ACP fleet” while refining “producibility and cost.”

GE’s track record on rapid small engine development gives the program some credibility. Steve Russell, Vice President and General Manager of Edison Works at GE Aerospace, referenced that experience directly in the company’s announcement: “We’ve proven we can rapidly move from concept to engine demonstration with the GEK800, and our focus now is on applying that process to the GE426 to ensure it provides the performance, affordability, and readiness the warfighter needs.” The GEK800, developed in partnership with Kratos, powered the Valkyrie-class drone and demonstrated that GE could move from concept to flying hardware on a timeline and cost structure that traditional jet engine development never approached. Applying that model to a medium-thrust engine for a larger class of combat platform is the explicit engineering goal of the GE426 program.

The competitive landscape for these engines illustrates how seriously the industry is taking the ACP opportunity. Honeywell is developing its SkyShot 1600, a compact engine configurable as either a turbojet or turbofan delivering between 800 and 2,800 pounds of thrust, according to Air Force Times reporting on the February 2026 contract awards. Beehive Industries, a Denver-based company that manufactures engine components through additive manufacturing from metal powder, received a contract targeting the 1,000-pound thrust class. Pratt and Whitney also received a related contract, with all four teams working under the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s Propulsion Directorate, which is pursuing not only CCA propulsion but a broader agenda covering engines for other uncrewed platforms, targets, and missiles, with the potential for a common small-thrust engine across multiple systems translating to future unit demand in the thousands, according to Forecast International’s analysis.