YFQ-42 Begins Mission Autonomy Testing In U.S. CCA First

NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland—Mission autonomy testing has started on the General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. (GA-ASI) competitor for the initial U.S. Air Force Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), the company president tells Aviation Week.

The milestone means the YFQ-42 prototype is already exploring the suite of software designed to make tactical choices when given broad commands by a human partner flying in a different aircraft.

“We’re just beginning the autonomy piece right now,” GA-ASI President David Alexander said in an interview.

The YFQ-42 completed a first flight on Aug. 27, opening a series of flight envelope expansion tests.

Aviation Week previously reported that the Air Force selected the RTX Technologies mission autonomy suite to integrate into the YFQ-42. Shield AI is integrating a version of the Hivemind autonomy system on the Anduril YFQ-44, a prototype competing for a follow-on CCA production contract.

The mission autonomy system integrates an AI-assisted list of behaviors that the CCA can use to guide its tactical choices during a flight.

Alexander pushed back at questions about the sophistication of the YFQ-42 at first flight.

Speaking to reporters at the Air, Space and Cyber conference here on Sept. 22, Anduril executives said the YFQ-44 had not yet reached first flight because the company was still working on the semi-autonomous control system used during the aircraft taxi, takeoff and landing phases. Anduril claimed that the YFQ-44 was developing this technology on a CCA for the first time.

Alexander acknowledged that GA-ASI’s competitor in the CCA program was flown manually by the company’s chief test pilot during the first flight. But he noted that GA-ASI has been operating semi-autonomous uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) since 2004, when the MQ-1C Gray Eagle first flew with an automatic landing system. All new GA-ASI aircraft are flown manually during the first several flight tests before the company moves to semi-autonomous control.

“I know there’s all that talk out there [from Anduril],” Alexander said. “But that’s a bunch of crap. Go ahead and print it.”