A US Air Force F-22 Raptor pilot has for the first time directed a YFQ-44A Fury Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) while both aircraft were in the air. The Air Force announced the airborne tactical control demonstration on 16 October 2026 and said it took place earlier in the month12. Anduril, which builds the Fury, said the flight was flown out of Edwards Air Force Base, California, during the week of 5 October2.

What the F-22 pilot did

According to the Air Force, the F-22 pilot "served as an airborne 'quarterback,' issuing high-level tactical directives to a single YFQ-44A." The service said the drone's "onboard autonomy software interpreted and executed those directives in real time," enabling dynamic flight manoeuvres and simulated combat tasks13. In other words, the pilot assigned the tasks and the uncrewed aircraft's own software worked out how to fly them.

Anduril gave a little more detail. The Fury and the F-22 both took off from Edwards and joined up in mid-air, after which the Raptor pilot sent the Fury an updated mission plan over a tactical data link23. Anduril described the flight as a first for both an F-22 and a pre-production YFQ-44A3. Neither the Air Force nor Anduril has said how the F-22 cockpit was configured for the test3. In an earlier surrogate trial in October 2025, an F-22 pilot controlled a General Atomics MQ-20 Avenger over the Nevada Test and Training Range using a tablet in the cockpit, in a demonstration led by Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works7. Lockheed Martin is working with the Air Force on control architectures and user interfaces for the F-22 and F-353.

The demonstration brought together the 412th Test Wing at Edwards, the 422nd Test and Evaluation Squadron at Nellis Air Force Base, the 309th Software Engineering Group at Hill Air Force Base, the CCA Experimental Operations Unit, the F-22 System Program Office and the CCA Software Autonomy and Teaming Branch12.

"This flight shows the power of crewed-uncrewed teaming and the advantage it provides our warfighters," said Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ken Wilsbach. "We must test often, learn fast and give commanders what they need, when they need it"14. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said the result "demonstrates what is possible when we are aligned with industry on a shared imperative"4. Mark Shushnar, Anduril's vice president of autonomous airpower, said: "The U.S. Air Force's CCA program is the fastest moving, most mature CCA program anywhere in the world"23.

Where the CCA programme stands

The first phase of the programme, Increment 1, has two aircraft: Anduril's Fury and General Atomics' Vengeance, flown as the YFQ-44A and YFQ-42A prototypes. On 17 June 2026 the Air Force awarded both companies engineering and manufacturing development and production contracts, four months ahead of schedule, covering the first three production lots. With that decision the designations became FQ-44A and FQ-42A54. The Air Force has not disclosed the contract values or how many aircraft each lot will contain5.

At the time of the award, the Air Force said it expected to field at least 150 Increment 1 aircraft by the end of the decade. It is requesting 996.5 million dollars in fiscal 2027 to start procurement, and had earlier aimed for a unit cost of about 30 million dollars, roughly a third of an F-355. In their reports on the F-22 flight, Air & Space Forces Magazine and The War Zone put the current goal at 500 Increment 1 CCAs by 2032, with Air & Space Forces Magazine adding that the service eventually wants 1,000 or more23. Increment 1 is focused on air-to-air missions2. A follow-on Increment 2 is planned and may involve entirely different aircraft35. The mission autonomy software is being competed separately: Anduril, Shield AI and Collins Aerospace are in the running, and the Air Force plans to pick a primary provider by summer 20275.

The Fury made its first flight on 31 October 20254. On 15 July 2026 the Air Force announced that a YFQ-44A had launched an AIM-120 missile at a digital target over the Mojave Desert. Gen. Dale White said the tests show CCA "can execute the weapon employment sequence autonomously within pilot-defined parameters"6. Military.com reports that the Air Force has said CCA will not employ weapons autonomously and that the decision to release any weapon remains with a human operator10. Anduril has also flown the Fury in formation with F-35s, although the F-35s were not yet sending it commands3.

The October test involved a single drone. The Air Force's plan is for a pilot to eventually control several CCAs as a formation2, and The War Zone reports that F-22s are set to be the first airborne quarterbacks once CCAs enter operational service, which is expected around the end of the decade3. The next step is Emerald Flag in December, which Lt. Col. Lyndon Bartlett, director of operations of the Experimental Operations Unit, said will be the first large-force employment exercise with these aircraft3.

What it means for fighter pilots

The demonstration shows the role the Air Force has in mind for the pilot: not a remote pilot flying a second aircraft, but a formation leader who hands out tasks and lets the uncrewed wingman decide how to execute them12. Military.com, describing the Air Force's experiments, writes that CCAs "are not meant to be micromanaged" and that the main challenge is giving pilots enough information to make decisions about the aircraft without distracting them from their own mission. Pilots need to know what their self-flying wingmen are doing while still flying their own jet safely, and the hardest part, the site writes, is knowing when to let the machine do its job and when to take control10.

Workload is the open question. The War Zone notes that tablet-style control interfaces are a workable starting point but have drawn criticism for adding to the workload of pilots in single-seat fighters, and that pilots' trust that their uncrewed wingmen will behave as expected is seen as critical3. In 2025 Air & Space Forces Magazine reported Air Force and industry leaders saying experiments had shown that pilots "can manage up to six CCAs with relative ease"9.

Training and selection: what is known so far

The Air Force has not published a training syllabus for pilots who will control CCAs, nor any change to how fighter pilots are selected. What the sources do show is who is writing the playbook. The Experimental Operations Unit was activated in June 2025 at Nellis Air Force Base under the 53rd Wing to work out tactics, techniques and procedures for crewed-uncrewed teaming, first in simulation and then in live flying8. When the unit began flying the YFQ-44A in 2026, its commander, Lt. Col. Matthew Jensen, said: "Every sortie generated and flown was done with a warfighter, not an engineer or test pilot"8. According to Military.com, the results of these exercises will shape tactics, training and mission procedures10.

The aircraft themselves will be looked after by a new kind of unit. The Air Force named Beale Air Force Base, California, as the preferred location for its first CCA Aircraft Readiness Unit, which a spokesperson said "is not a schoolhouse": it will provide CCAs for combat operations rather than train fighter pilots. The service said CCAs will be kept in a fly-ready status and flown minimally, with far fewer personnel than a traditional fighter squadron, and that "we are still developing the tactics, techniques, and procedures for employing CCA"9.

For aspiring military pilots, the picture from these reports is that the fighter pilot stays in charge, with an extra layer of work on top of flying the jet: assigning tasks to uncrewed wingmen, monitoring what they are doing and deciding when to step in110. How that will be taught, and from what stage of training, is something the Air Force has yet to set out.