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At the 2026 Air, Space & Cyber Conference, the U.S. Air Force announced an unprecedented transformation: deploying 1,000 autonomous combat aircraft by 2032. Spurred by the loss of 45 MQ-9 Reapers during operations in Iran and the rapid evolution of drone warfare in Ukraine, the Pentagon is moving forward with two core programs: 500 Collaborative Combat Aircraft (General Atomics’ FQ-42A Vengeance and Anduril’s YFQ-44A Fury) and 500 low-cost Massed Modular Aircraft (including the anti-ship capable Wildfire). Discover how autonomous formation flights, live AMRAAM missile tests, and expeditionary "hot reloads" are redefining American air supremacy.
⏱️ CHAPTERS:
00:00 - The 1,000 Uncrewed Aircraft Mandate: Troy Meink's 2032 Target
02:28 - CCA Increment 1: GA FQ-42A Vengeance & Anduril YFQ-44A Fury
04:17 - Fury Proving Grounds: Creech F-35 Integration & Live AMRAAM Kill Chain
08:52 - MMA Program & The Iran Catalyst: Replacing Attrited MQ-9 Reapers
12:06 - General Atomics' Wildfire: 8,000 NM Range & Peer Anti-Ship Strike
13:12 - High-Low Force Structure: FAMM Munitions, B-21, & Open Architecture
15:06 - Strategic Hurdles: FAA Part 108 Regulations, EW Vulnerability, & Pilot Culture Shift
Support us directly as we bring you independent, up-to-date reporting on military news and global conflicts by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMilitaryShow/join
#militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #militaryanalysis
#themilitaryshow
SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/UAerfH6s
At the 2026 Air, Space & Cyber Conference, the U.S. Air Force announced an unprecedented transformation: deploying 1,000 autonomous combat aircraft by 2032. Spurred by the loss of 45 MQ-9 Reapers during operations in Iran and the rapid evolution of drone warfare in Ukraine, the Pentagon is moving forward with two core programs: 500 Collaborative Combat Aircraft (General Atomics’ FQ-42A Vengeance and Anduril’s YFQ-44A Fury) and 500 low-cost Massed Modular Aircraft (including the anti-ship capable Wildfire). Discover how autonomous formation flights, live AMRAAM missile tests, and expeditionary "hot reloads" are redefining American air supremacy.
⏱️ CHAPTERS:
00:00 - The 1,000 Uncrewed Aircraft Mandate: Troy Meink's 2032 Target
02:28 - CCA Increment 1: GA FQ-42A Vengeance & Anduril YFQ-44A Fury
04:17 - Fury Proving Grounds: Creech F-35 Integration & Live AMRAAM Kill Chain
08:52 - MMA Program & The Iran Catalyst: Replacing Attrited MQ-9 Reapers
12:06 - General Atomics' Wildfire: 8,000 NM Range & Peer Anti-Ship Strike
13:12 - High-Low Force Structure: FAMM Munitions, B-21, & Open Architecture
15:06 - Strategic Hurdles: FAA Part 108 Regulations, EW Vulnerability, & Pilot Culture Shift
Support us directly as we bring you independent, up-to-date reporting on military news and global conflicts by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMilitaryShow/join
#militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #militaryanalysis
#themilitaryshow
SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/UAerfH6s
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NewsTranscript
00:01For most of the 20th century, American air power has been measured in pilots.
00:06Every fighter, every bomber, every strike package that crossed an enemy border had a human being strapped into it.
00:12And the size of the force was capped by how many of those people in the Air Force could train,
00:16and how many multi-million dollar jets it could afford to put them in.
00:20That's about to change.
00:21On September 14, 2026, at the Air and Space Forces Association's Air, Space and Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Maryland,
00:30the Secretary of the Air Force, Troy Menk, laid out a plan that would have sounded like science fiction just
00:35a few years ago.
00:36By 2032, the United States Air Force intends to field at least 500 semi-autonomous fighter drones,
00:43and another 500 lower-cost strike and surveillance drones to go with them.
00:47This is a thousand new uncrewed combat aircraft in six years.
00:51So today, we're going to break down exactly what that force looks like,
00:55including the two very different drone programs behind it,
00:59but also the broader implications that led to that move.
01:02Because if this plan works, the next major war the United States fights in the air will look nothing like
01:07the last one.
01:08But before we can do that, consider becoming a member of the military show here on YouTube.
01:13It will directly support our efforts in bringing you the latest news and deepest analytics concerning warfare and global geopolitics.
01:21Now, let's start with the headline number, because it's a much bigger jump than it might first appear.
01:26The program at the center of all is called Collaborative Combat Aircraft, or CCA.
01:31These are jet-powered semi-autonomous drones designed to fly alongside crude fighters like the F-35 and the upcoming
01:38F-47,
01:39carrying weapons and sensors, potentially absorbing losses that might otherwise threaten crude aircraft,
01:45and extending the reach of the pilots they work with.
01:47The Air Force has been talking about CCAs for years, but the numbers it's attached to the program have moved
01:53around a lot.
01:54Back in 2023, then-Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall floated a long-term goal of at least 1,000 CCAs
02:01across the life of the program.
02:02But when it came to near-term plans, the talk got much more modest.
02:06In 2024, Kendall said the service could only have 100 CCAs by 2029,
02:11and when the Air Force ordered its first two CCA designs into production in June 2026,
02:17the goal was to buy over 150 CCAs by the end of the decade.
02:21By September, that figure has jumped to at least 500 in service by 2032,
02:26suggesting a 350 craft jump in three years after 2029.
02:31So what exactly is the Air Force buying?
02:34The first batch of CCAs, officially known as Increment 1,
02:38consists of two different aircraft from two different companies.
02:41The first is General Atomics' FQ-42A.
02:45For a while, it was dubbed Dark Merlin, but the official name became Vengeance.
02:49The second is Anduril Industries' YFQ-44A, which keeps the name it already had, Fury.
02:56According to reports from the conference, production of both aircraft is getting underway,
03:00and they'll be performing many of the same missions that crewed fighters performed today.
03:04For Increment 1, that means air-to-air combat first and foremost.
03:08Future increments could branch out into air-to-ground strikes, reconnaissance,
03:12or electronic warfare, and other companies already lining up to compete.
03:16Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, for example, showed off a full-scale model of its Vectus design at the same conference.
03:23It's not yet clear whether those future increments are counted inside the new 500 aircraft target.
03:28General Dale White, who oversees major Air Force acquisition programs, told Aviation Week it's too early to say whether that
03:36figure will cover only the first Increment or later versions too.
03:39Though the war zone assessed it's likely that Increment 2 aircraft are factored in.
03:44What about cost?
03:45This is where the entire concept lives or dies.
03:48Crewed fighters cost many times more, and that's before you count the years and money it takes to train the
03:53pilot.
03:53The Air Force has said it's targeting a price of around $20 million per CCA air vehicle once full-rate
03:59production gets going.
04:01The Fury's unit cost is already well below $20 million at the quantities currently contemplated,
04:07although Anduril, the company behind it, also noted that the Air Force's current pricing is based on a much smaller
04:12annual production.
04:14Neither the Air Force nor the companies have published a final firm unit price for the production aircraft,
04:19and the per aircraft cost could decline as production scales up.
04:23Now, it's one thing to announce a concept with a few numbers.
04:27It's another thing entirely to show that the aircraft actually work.
04:31So, this is where the story gets interesting, because the Fury in particular has been busy.
04:36At the same conference, Anduril executives revealed that the YFQ-44A prototype for Fury has already flown in formation with
04:43crewed F-35s during Air Force testing at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada.
04:48But in these tests, the F-35 wasn't the one controlling the Fury during those flights.
04:53Instead, the drone was flying under its own mission autonomy software, sharing airspace with crewed fighters, other CCAs, and other
05:01aircraft.
05:01It was the Air Force personnel on the ground who were monitoring that autonomy system with Anduril's support.
05:07That distinction matters.
05:08Flying next to an F-35 proves that the drone and its software can operate safely in the same patch
05:14of sky as a fifth-generation fighter.
05:16Being controlled by that F-35 is the real next step.
05:20At that point, a single pilot can start commanding extra aircraft as part of a bigger force, which is arguably
05:25the entire point of the program.
05:28Anduril calls it quarterback integration, and the company has been developing the capability for the Fury.
05:33The company has indicated that initial flight demonstrations could take place later in 2026.
05:38And the Fury's testing record for the first half of 2026 also goes well beyond formation flying.
05:45In April, during a first exercise at Edwards Air Force Base in California, Air Force personnel were trained to operate
05:51the aircraft and were able to launch and recover it using Anduril's compact Menace-T setup.
05:56For reference, Menace-T is essentially a pair of ruggedized cases and a laptop, illustrating how little fixed infrastructure is
06:03needed to operate the aircraft compared with a traditional ground control setup.
06:07And by the time the drone arrived at Creech in July for testing, the Air Force had cut the manpower
06:12and infrastructure down even further.
06:14There, a single operator from the Experimental Operations Unit could launch and recover the aircraft after only hours of training.
06:22The exercise also tested what the company called disaggregated operations, meaning personnel at multiple locations could all operate the same
06:30aircraft.
06:30And in one of the more striking moments, two operators performed a hot reload, swapping out an AIM-120 AMRAAM
06:37air-to-air missile while the engine was still running, cutting the turnaround time between sorties down to single-digit
06:43minutes.
06:43Then came the weapons test. Also in July, Anduril says that Fury carried out a complete end-to-end kill
06:50chain.
06:51The drone took off from Edwards with a single operator. It received a target track generated by an outside source
06:57over a beyond line of sight connection.
06:59That track was fed into the software. The operator tasked the aircraft to engage and the Fury fired an AIM
07:04-120 and guided it to the target.
07:07From outside targeting data to the drone's own mission systems, to a human giving the order, to a missile leaving
07:13the rail, the whole chain worked, demonstrating the viability of the concept in that test.
07:18The production FQ-44 is being designed with four external hardpoints, enough to carry four AMRAAMs. The demonstration aircraft currently
07:26carries two.
07:28But Anduril clearly wants the Fury to be more than an air-to-air missile truck. The company says it
07:33started integration and fit checks for £500 guided bombs, small diameter bombs, low-cost cruise missiles including its own Barracuda
07:41500, other air-to-air weapons, rocket pods and targeting pods.
07:45The idea is to give the aircraft options for counter-drone work, shooting down cruise missiles and striking ground and
07:52surface targets.
07:53This is something that's indicative of what the US forces have seen in both the war in Ukraine and the
07:58broader conflicts surrounding the Middle East, including Israel and Iran.
08:02Anduril has also delivered a Fury permanently to the Experimental Operations Unit at Creech, making it the first CCA to
08:09join the unit for ongoing testing, and the Air Force is flying tests multiple times a day.
08:13The company says it built a production facility and supply chain around a potential rate of 150 aircraft per year.
08:20That represents production capacity, not an actual Air Force order or guaranteed annual production rate.
08:26General Atomics' Vengeance has been flying in prototype form as well, and the EOU has been testing both Increment 1
08:34designs this year.
08:35So the Air Force is building a split fleet, with two designs from two manufacturers, which allows it to hedge
08:40if one design runs into trouble and gives both companies a reason to keep pushing.
08:44Now, before we get into the second, and arguably even more disruptive half of this plan, take a second to
08:50hit that subscribe button and turn on notifications.
08:53We cover these developments as they happen, and the shift to autonomous air power is one story you're going to
08:59want to follow closely over the next few years.
09:02Now, back to it.
09:03The second program is called Mast Modular Aircraft, or MMA.
09:07If CCAs are the autonomous wingmen for fighter pilots, MMAs are something closer to a flying workhorse.
09:14They're meant to take over the job currently done by the MQ-9A Reaper, the drone that's defined American remote
09:20warfare for two decades.
09:21Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance combined would strike.
09:25The Air Force reportedly wants to field 100 MMA drones by 2029 and 500 by 2032.
09:32That's a big increase over the earlier public target of at least 180 airframes.
09:37These aircraft are supposed to be cheap.
09:40In a report from early September 2026, Air Force officials told reporters that the MMA should cost roughly $10 million,
09:47not counting sensors and other systems, about half the targeted price of a CCA.
09:52And Menck suggested that the Air Force should actually go above the proposed operational targets,
09:57and buy as many of these units as budget allows.
10:00So why the sudden focus on these systems?
10:03The answer is the war with Iran.
10:05The Air Force refers to its major combat operations against Iran earlier in 2026 as Operation Epic Fury,
10:12and during that campaign, the Reaper fleet took a beating.
10:15By September, at least 45 MQ-9s had been lost in operations against Iran, roughly a quarter of the Air
10:21Force's fleet.
10:22The Air Force had 182 MQ-9s in its inventory at the start of fiscal 2026,
10:29and officials said in May that the fleet had fallen to about 135 aircraft after losses and other changes.
10:35Pair this with the fact that the MQ-9 production line actually shut down in 2025,
10:41meaning that the MQ-9A production line is no longer available to quickly replace the aircraft being lost.
10:46The Air Force has nevertheless explored options for acquiring additional MQ-9As and rebuilding the fleet.
10:52Instead of the MQ-9A, which is the model the US is using, General Atomics offers the improved MQ-9B,
10:59or Sky Guardian.
11:00This drone is much larger and technically more capable than the Reaper, but it also comes with a substantial price
11:07tag of $30-$50 million per unit, depending on the loadout.
11:11The Sky Guardian has a more modest production figure, and is also currently being exported to countries like the UK,
11:17Poland, Belgium, Canada and India,
11:19which have practically monopolised the company's production efforts. While the US ordered three MQ-9Bs for Air Force Special Operations
11:27Command in 2023,
11:29there's no actual report on how they were being used in Iran, or if they were used at all.
11:33There is no clear public reporting establishing whether US MQ-9B aircraft had been used in the Iran operations or
11:40suffered losses there,
11:41and losing a more expensive MQ-9B would carry a higher acquisition cost than losing an MQ-9A.
11:48Compare this to what the two new projects provide, a leaner force that costs between $10-$20 million per
11:54unit,
11:54liable to drop even more if production figures increase. They'll be more affordable long-range strike forces.
12:00But beyond that, they're a trittable, which brings together the entire concept of using them over a conventional aircraft.
12:07It means they're cheap enough that commanders can accept losing some of them. A Reaper was never designed to fly
12:12into dense modern air defences.
12:14The lesson from both Ukraine and Iran is that drones are going to get shot down in large numbers,
12:19so the smart move is to build aircraft you can afford to lose, and to build a lot of them.
12:23And even General Atomics, the same company that built the Predator and the Reaper, a stake to claim in this
12:29space.
12:29They unveiled a new design called Wildfire, and put it up for the MMA competition.
12:34According to General Atomics, Wildfire combines features from its existing drones with lower-cost components and a more modular design,
12:41and it's meant to be fielded quickly in large numbers and take risks in combat roles.
12:46On paper, the claims are big.
12:48General Atomics says Wildfire exceeds 8,000 nautical miles of ferry range,
12:53can carry two long-range anti-ship missiles or four joint-strike missiles, or a range of other weapons, sensors
12:59and launch defects.
13:00The company says its autonomy will allow networked control of dozens of wildfires at once,
13:05and it can deliver the aircraft years earlier than the fiscal 2031 timeline set by the Defense Innovation Unit that
13:12oversees the MMA designs.
13:14Even if a part of all of that holds up, it just tells you how different this drone is from
13:19the Reaper it's meant to replace.
13:21A drone carrying anti-ship missiles is on a counter-insurgency tool. It's a weapon built with a peer fight
13:26in mind.
13:27Now, let's zoom out, because the drones are only part of what Mink described in the conference.
13:32In the same speech, he said that by 2032, Air Force Special Operators will be able to employ thousands of
13:38autonomous one-way attack systems.
13:40He also said the Air Force plans to have tens of thousands of weapons from its new family of affordable
13:45mass munitions, or FAM, in its inventory by 2030,
13:49and that some of them are already in use today.
13:52Put all of that together, and you get a picture of a service trying to trade its old model,
13:56a small number of extremely expensive, extremely capable aircraft,
14:00for a mix of high-end crew jets and huge numbers of cheaper autonomous systems and munitions.
14:06To be clear, this won't replace the crown jewels of American aviation.
14:09The sixth generation F-47 fighter and the B-21 Raider stealth bomber will still likely be key to the
14:16US being able to project force across the world.
14:18But their large cost and production constraints, coupled with the fact that there's only so much you can plan for
14:23in terms of aircraft survivability,
14:25mean that flying those planes into enemy airspace will always come with risks that might border on unacceptable if air
14:31defences become better.
14:33Instead, the designs on offer are distributed, using cheaper systems, but a lot of them, to numerically overwhelmed targeting systems.
14:40It's the same kind of logic that Russia has used to overcome Ukraine's defences,
14:45and precisely why the US is arching for Patriot interceptors to the point where it won't send more to Ukraine.
14:50Both CCA and MMA are also being built around what is called an open systems architecture.
14:56In plain terms, that means standardized interfaces so that sensors, weapons and other equipment can be swapped in and out
15:02more easily,
15:03which means more companies can compete to supply them.
15:06In theory, this approach will speed up procurement, increase competition, lower prices and give the Air Force more options.
15:13It also means the aircraft are expected to keep evolving.
15:16So what's standing in the way?
15:18More than you might think, and interestingly, the biggest obstacle may not be technology at all.
15:23The first part may be policy, starting with the Federal Aviation Administration, or FAA,
15:29and the rules that govern flying uncrewed aircraft in US airspace.
15:33The new systems are not remotely piloted aircraft in the way the Reaper is, with an operator flying it from
15:38a console.
15:38But they're not crewed fighters either.
15:40They have no pilot at all, and the American aviation system simply wasn't built for that.
15:45Instead, much of the existing regulatory framework for civil uncrewed aircraft is built around an identified remote pilot
15:51or other responsible person, rather than a fully autonomous aircraft operating without a human pilot.
15:57They also assume that the aircraft operating in shared airspace can see and avoid other traffic.
16:02An MQ-9 Reaper technically satisfies both.
16:05It has no one on board, but it has a rated pilot at a console flying it, talking to controllers
16:11and able to respond in seconds.
16:13The regulatory system treats that person as the pilot.
16:15A CC-8 breaks this part, and the bigger problem is that this might take years to resolve.
16:21One major piece of the FAA's effort is the proposed Part 108 rule for beyond-the-visual-line-of-sight
16:27operations,
16:28which remains under development.
16:30Even if finalised, Part 108 would primarily establish a regulatory framework for civil BV loss operations.
16:36It would not by itself establish a regulatory framework for autonomous military fighter aircraft.
16:41Then there's the question of trust.
16:44Pilots have to believe that an autonomous wingman will do exactly what it's told, when it's told, and nothing else.
16:49This trust is being built through testing, including the Air Force's decision to maintain CCA prototypes within its experimental operations
16:56unit
16:57that it can use to showcase that the operational kill chain actually works and does what it's being told.
17:02However, there's also the risk that communications or navigation could be disrupted, or that an adversary could attempt to interfere
17:09with the aircraft's command and control links.
17:12Given the extensive electronic warfare and counter-drone capabilities demonstrated in the Russia-Ukraine war,
17:18the vulnerability of autonomous systems to communications and navigation disruption is an important consideration,
17:23even if the two technologies are on a different scale.
17:26And, of course, there's the money.
17:28The number of MMA's the Air Force buys will depend on what Congress provides,
17:32and long-term funding for the whole push remains uncertain.
17:35The targets for the programs have shifted rapidly over the previous three years,
17:39so there's a possibility that the budget for them shifts too.
17:42Take the actual F-22 as an example.
17:45The Air Force initially projected 750 aircraft in service, but it only bought 187, less than a quarter of the
17:52initial projection.
17:53And the US likely actually had the money to order more planes, it just didn't want to.
17:58While the projects here are deliberately designed to go against that flow,
18:01there's no telling how that plan fares when put in front of Congress as a budget proposal.
18:06There's also a human side to this transformation, and it may be one of the most underrated parts of the
18:11story.
18:12If the Air Force really does add hundreds of autonomous aircraft to its fleet,
18:16it will need a different kind of pilot to lead them.
18:18If the program is done right, the Air Force will be adding tens or even hundreds of aircraft into the
18:23airspace,
18:24making mission planning all that more complex.
18:26That focus on aircraft autonomy changes the job.
18:30Future aviators will spend less time on stick and rudder flying,
18:33and more time on judgement, leadership and mission command,
18:36directing a team of crewed and uncrewed aircraft, rather than just flying a single jet.
18:41The Air Force has already started reorganising its training enterprise with that in mind,
18:46announcing in May 2026 that formal training units for the F-35, F-16 and MQ-9
18:52would move from Air Education and Training Command to Air Combat Command,
18:56so that students are exposed to operational environments earlier in their careers.
19:00So, is the Pentagon really preparing something massive for the next war?
19:04Look at the pieces.
19:06A fighter drone that's already flown with F-35s,
19:09fired alive AMRAAM through a complete kill chain,
19:11and been turned around between sorties in minutes by a tiny crew.
19:15A production line that its builder says is designed for up to 150 aircraft a year.
19:20A second fleet of cheaper strike drones borne directly out of the losses over Iran,
19:24with contenders already carrying anti-ship missiles on the drawing board.
19:28Tens of thousands of low-cost munitions,
19:31and a stated goal of a thousand new autonomous combat aircraft by 2032.
19:36None of this is guaranteed.
19:38The quarterback control tests have not happened yet.
19:40The air-to-ground weapons have not been flight tested from the Fury.
19:43The FAA and the Air Force's own rule books are not ready for aircraft with no pilot at all,
19:48and Congress still has to pay for it.
19:50But the direction is unmistakable.
19:53The Air Force is betting that the next major air war will be won not only by the best pilots
19:57in the most advanced jets, but by whoever can put the most capable machines in the sky,
20:02and afford to lose some of them.
20:03And the hope is that by 2032,
20:06the US will have a very different composition in its air forces than it has in 2026.
20:11Whether that force arrives on time, and in the numbers promise,
20:14may be one of the most important military questions of the next decade.
20:18Thanks for watching.
20:19Now, if you'd like to see more analyses like these,
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