Pictured is the YFQ-42A production representative test vehicle in Poway, Calif. (General Atomics Photo)
The House Armed Services Committee (HASC) wants the U.S. Air Force to lay out its plan for full- scale production of Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) Increment 1.
“The committee expects the Air Force to move forward with full-scale production of Increment 1 as soon as possible following the completion of successful flight demonstrations,” according to an en bloc amendment last week by Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) to the HASC’s fiscal 2026 defense authorization bill. “While CCAs are envisioned to operate alongside fighter aircraft, the committee is fully supportive of the potential of autonomous aircraft and expansion of these capabilities with other piloted-type aircraft. Therefore, the committee directs the secretary of the Air Force to provide a briefing to the House Committee on Armed Services, not later than January 16, 2026, on the service’s plans to transition CCA Increment 1 prototypes to full-scale production and the associated resource requirements.”
The Anduril Industries‘ YFQ-44A Fury and the General Atomics‘ YFQ-42A Gambit CCA prototypes are to have their debut flights this year, and the Air Force said in May that the prototypes had begun ground testing.
The Air Force has said that it plans an Increment 1 downselect in fiscal 2026 and the start of Increment 2 development that year.
The range of the U.S. Air Force’s prototype CCAs are to be at least 700 nautical miles–greater than the 590 nautical mile range of the Air Force F-22 Raptor fighter by Lockheed Martin and the 670 nautical mile range of the service’s F-35A Lightning II, also by Lockheed Martin.
Beale AFB, Calif.–the home of the U-2 surveillance plane–is to house the Aircraft Readiness Unit for CCAs to allow them to deploy quickly.
In April last year, the Air Force narrowed the CCA Increment 1 field to General Atomics and Anduril. While the service had said flight testing would begin this summer, the Turner amendment approved by HASC last week said that “the program is on pace to conduct flight testing in late 2025.”
The amendment said that the “committee remains concerned with the rapid military growth of adversaries and the speed by which mass-produced, modern capabilities are proliferated and threaten the air superiority that has underpinned U.S. military dominance for decades.”
“To counter these threats, the committee encourages the Air Force to continue to embrace initiatives that accelerate affordable and rapid fielding of capable airpower mass,” according to the amendment. “The committee remains strongly supportive of the Increment 1 Collaborative Combat Aircraft program. In just over five years, the CCA program has progressed from conceptual development to production and fielding of an operationally relevant capability, while leveraging technologically advanced contributions of an expanding industrial base.”
A version of this story originally appeared in affiliate publication Defense Daily.